Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/172

 *lished records of the nests of spiders belonging to the sub-order Territelariæ, with a view, if possible, to trace out the geographical range of the several types of structure. I have, however, met with but a small amount of success, and even among the limited number of tolerably complete accounts of nests which I have been able to discover, several made no mention of the spider to which the nest belongs.

Prof. Ausserer has enumerated 215 species of Territelariæ as having been found in the world at large, but of this large number ten only, as far as I have been able to learn, have been described in connexion with their nests, and eight of these belong to the Mediterranean region. To these we may now add two more, namely, Nemesia meridionalis, with its branched double-door nest, and N. Eleanora the builder of the unbranched double-door nest, thus making twelve in all.

Three of the twelve, however, Atypus piceus, A. Blackwallii, and Nemesia cellicola, do not appear to build true trap-doors, but only a simple silk tube without any covering at the mouth.

The following tabular view will show to which of the four types of trap-door nest those of the remaining nine spiders belong, and their geographical distribution:—