Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/182

 the burrow, and runs to the door only when she sees it threatened, in order to keep the door firmly closed. On the contrary, always standing at the door as sentinel, she leaves it as soon as she thinks it in danger, so that it can be raised without the least effort: but if you hold it a little raised without making any sign of movement, she turns on her back, and comes out to draw it down with her feet, making all the efforts she can to conquer the obstacle. But if you take it away entirely, she turns down the edges to close the aperture as best she can, and that she does hurriedly, without waiting for night. The light seems to offend her so much that, if exposed to the full day, she remains so stupefied as to appear dead, nor does she move even if shaken; on the contrary, she constantly stops still and holds herself with her feet pressed against her body. At last, if very much disturbed, she runs quickly for some distance, till she finds a place in which to hide her head, and from thence she does not stir. I have observed that the burrows are always short when the aperture is small, and increase in length as they augment in diameter, which makes me conclude that it is not true that they begin their excavations from the base of the mother's tube, where I have never found any communication with others. This spider is found in the neighbourhood of Naples (ne' contorni della Capitale), on the Camaldoli, in the island of Ischia, where it lives near the sources of mineral waters, in Gaeta at the foot of the olive trees, among the stones in the ground, &c. &c.

"Observation. The difference which distinguishes our Mygale from the Sauvagesii consists, first, in the toothing of the mandibles, which is observable on one side only of the channel, and not on both; secondly, in the tarsi all equally armed with spines, and not only the four anterior ones; thirdly, in the colour of the thorax and the abdomen, which is not uniform as is usual in the Sauvagesii. Nevertheless, such differences might be in part climatic, which would cause our Mygale to be considered as a mere variety of the same species, and the others might be the result of the different method of examining the parts, and of the goodness of the instruments."