and G represent on a reduced scale five types of wafer nest constructed by as many distinct spiders, and where a gradation may readily be traced between the simplest type at C and the most complicated at G; but we shall speak more fully of this matter by-and-by.
In these diagrams I have placed that representing the nest of Atypus on the extreme left (A);[1] next to this stands that of a nest of the cork type (B), a type which must be carefully distinguished from all the rest. It must not be supposed that the solid cork door (so called from its resemblance to a short cork closing the neck of a bottle), is nothing more than a thicker edition of the wafer door; it is not so, but, on the contrary, possesses a very characteristic structure of its own, being composed of many layers of silk, each furnished with a sloping rim of earth, while the wafer door consists of but a single layer of silk.
I have represented at B 1 the 14 layers of silk and earth which went to make a single cork door examined by me. It will be seen that the outermost of these layers is the largest, and the innermost the smallest, and I have already (Ants and Spiders, p. 150) shown reason for believing that the latter constituted
- ↑ These types may be briefly enumerated as follows: A, nest of Atypus. B, cork nest, and B, 1, layers of silk and earth forming the door of the cork nest. C, single-door, unbranched wafer nest. D, single door, branched wafer nest. E, double-door, unbranched wafer nest, and E, 1, lower door of the same. F, the Hyères double-door branched wafer nest, and F, 1, lower door of the same. G, double-door branched cavity wafer nest, as seen in the oldest and largest specimens, and G, 1, the same in the younger specimens. G, 2, the lower door of this nest, being of the same form in young and old nests.
