Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/111

 spider without obliging her to leave her nest, and it is accordingly their remains that we find.

On one occasion, however, at Montpellier, my sister detected N. cæmentaria in the act of devouring a fair-sized caterpillar, to obtain which there is some reason to think she must have left her nest. We were out together on the 8th of May last (1874), hunting for the new wafer nests of that district, under the kind guidance of M. Lichtenstein, when my sister called our attention to a caterpillar, the body of which partly projected from the tube of a cork nest (N. cæmentaria), and prevented the lid from closing.

On closer examination we found that the spider was in the act of devouring the caterpillar, and had already sucked out the juices from the anterior portion, while the middle and posterior parts of the body still resisted, and the legs clung tenaciously to the lip of the nest.

M. Lichtenstein told us that this larva, which when entire must have been rather more than an inch long, was that of the mullein moth (Cucullia verbasci).

It was not full grown, and as there were no mullein plants within some two feet of the nest and this caterpillar will not leave the plant on which it feeds unless compelled, it would seem as if the spider must have gone afield in order to capture it. It is possible, nevertheless, that the caterpillar may have fallen within reach of the spider when blown off the mullein leaves by the wind.

I have, unfortunately, but few details to give of the nocturnal habits of the trap-door spiders. It would appear, however, that they are more active by night than by day, and that it is more common to find