When at Hyères on the 11th of May, 1873, the evening being very warm and a bright moon shining, I went at 8:30 P.M. with my father and sister to see what the spiders would be doing on a hedge bank where we had previously marked five cork and eight wafer nests. The moonlight did not fall upon this spot, but I was provided with a lantern, and by its light the nests at first appeared to be tightly closed, but we soon perceived first one and then another with the door slightly raised, ready to close on the smallest alarm, whether from a footfall or from the flickering of the lamp. When the light of the lantern was steady it did not appear to frighten the spiders in the least, even when brought to within a few inches of the door,[148] and this enabled me to watch them very closely. On either side of the raised door of one of the wafer nests I could see the feet of the spider projecting, and just at that moment I caught sight of a beetle close at hand, feeding on the topmost spray of some small plant below. Using every precaution, I contrived to gather the spray without shaking off the beetle, and gradually pushed it nearer and nearer to the nest. When it almost touched the lip of the nest the door flew open, and the spider snatched at the beetle and dragged it down below. [Footnote 148: This had been observed before both by my father and Mr. Dillon when watching the trap-door spiders at night at Mentone.] For a few seconds the door remained tightly closed, and then, to our great surprise, was suddenly opened again, and the beetle was cast alive and unharmed out of the nest. I immediately secured the insect, which proved to be the common _Chrysomela Banksii_.[149] [Footnote 149: I am indebted to Mr. F. Smith for the name.] I cannot doubt that this beetle was distasteful in some way to the spider, for it was neither so large nor so powerful as many beetles the remains of which I have found in the spiders' nests, and, besides, it did not escape from the nest, but was distinctly rejected by its captor. This shows that this spider does not know instinctively what insects to reject and what to take. This little episode was scarcely ended when I espied a wood-louse (_Oniscus_) walking down the bank, not far from another of these wafer nests. By a little guidance I managed so to turn its course that this unsuspicious crustacean went straight to the very point I wished, and made as if it would walk over the spider's door; but no sooner was it well within reach than, quick as thought, the spider clutched it and dragged it in. No rejection followed on this capture, and, though I could not actually witness the conclusion of this adventure, I do not doubt that it ended in a tragedy and a supper.