from the fact of the same type being adopted indifferently by both nearly- and most distantly-related spiders, that the form of the nest is governed far more by the conditions which it is contrived to meet, than by the affinity or resemblance of the spiders which construct it.
I have found N. Moggridgii at San Remo, Mentone, Cannes, Hyères, and Marseilles, but thus far, I only know of the true N. cæmentaria at Montpellier.
The latter spider is rather bolder than the former, and I frequently saw it at Montpellier watching at the slightly raised door, with the tips of the claws projecting from the nest, and it rarely failed to resist most vigorously any attempt of mine to force the door open.
During the summer of 1873, I received two specimens of trap-door nests from California. Both of these nests were of the cork type and nearly entire, wanting only a small portion of the base of the tube; they most closely resembled one another and were probably the work of the same spider. For one of these, coming from the San Joaquin valley, between the Calaveras and the Tejon, I have to thank M. J. C. Puls, a Belgian entomologist residing at Ghent; and for the other, containing the spider which had constructed it alive within its tube (!), I am indebted to Mr. G. H. Treadwell of San Francisco. The former nest is drawn at fig. A, Plate XV., and the spider[1] from the latter at fig. B of the same plate.
Mr. Treadwell had carried this spider and its nest,
- ↑ This spider, which proves to be a new species, is described below (p. 260) as Cteniza Californica.
