Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/113

 substance, the light being clearly seen through each hole. I do not think, as I have somewhere seen suggested, that they are intended to afford a hold for the spider's claws when she would keep her door shut against the efforts of an enemy, for what would be the use of having them in the tube close to the lid, so close that not the eighth of an inch intervenes between the surface of the lid and that of the tube, when the former is tightly closed? I would suggest whether they may not be air-holes, for so tight is the fitting of the lid, and so compact the texture of the material, that I should suppose the interior would be impermeable to air but for this contrivance." "The spider that inhabits this nest is black, with the thorax of an exceedingly lustrous polish, its abdomen is full and round, its legs very short."

Another form of this single door wafer nest is described by Mr. Sells, in which there is a hinge-like thickening of the silk lining of the tube about an inch below the actual hinge of the door, which it is suggested may serve to give additional elasticity. This was not found, however, in all the nests examined, and Mr. Sells conjectures that in newly constructed nests the lid may close sufficiently firmly without this contrivance, and that it is only added in older nests.

Patrick Browne's figure, to which reference has been made above, represents a nest with two doors, one applied against the other, at the mouth of the tube,