that a given spider is invariably associated with a fixed type of nest.
Thus, Cannes is from fifty to sixty miles distant from San Remo, but the nests of N. cæmentaria, N. Manderstjernæ, and N. Eleanora show precisely the same characteristics in either place.
Moreover, the twelve nests referred to were not all taken from one restricted locality at Bordeaux, but were found presenting the same characteristics and occupied by the same spider in three distinct habitats, distant some miles from one another. In two nests several young spiders were found with the mother, and, in one case where the family consisted of twenty-three young ones, I observed that they were not all equally small, and some had nearly attained one-third of their full size.
This agreed with the fact that no very small nests were observed, and it seems probable that the young are not turned out of their nursery quite so early as some of their relations are at Mentone. This, however, varies perhaps in accordance with changes of climate and local conditions.
We failed to detect any other type of nest at Bordeaux than the one described above: and even the cork nests, which we had shortly before seen in such abundance at Montpellier, were apparently absent.
Bordeaux is by far the north-westernmost point in Europe[1] at which any spider constructing a true trap-door nest has as yet been discovered; and the fact that they exist in a climate so different from
- ↑ Cork nests have however been mentioned as occurring in the neighbourhood of Lyons, which lies in nearly the same parallel of latitude with Bordeaux.
