Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/108

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Lycosa narbonensis closes her nest at Cannes in the winter.

I was aware that Latreille stated that the Tarantula possessed this habit,[1] and I was anxious to know whether the species which I had detected at Cannes, inhabiting as it did open nests in the month of May, would also exhibit this curious custom. Being unable to visit Cannes myself during the winter, I applied to Mr. Brackenridge, who, on the 28th of January last (1874), secured a very perfect specimen of the aërial portion or chimney of one of the nests having the orifice closed in the way above described, and most kindly transmitted it to me.

I have, on a very few occasions, found the doors of a wafer or cork nest spun up during the winter at Mentone, and on digging have discovered the spider alive, though partially torpid, inside; but this is quite an exceptional event. I should much like to know, however, whether this becomes the rule in the case of the nests of those trap-door spiders which inhabit climates less favoured than that of Mentone.

In my concluding remarks in Ants and Spiders I called attention to the importance which attaches to a knowledge of the food and manner of feeding of any creature whose life-history we may wish to study, and I would now once more press the subject on the attention of my readers. For the range and distribution of a species largely depends upon the nature of its food, and this will also be an indication of the rivals with which it has to compete in

  1. P. A. Latreille, Mem. Soc. Hist. Nat., Paris (an. VII. de la République), p. 124: "L'araignée tarentule ferme aussi son habitation, mais cet opercule n'est pas mobile, et n'est construit que pour l'hiver."