Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/50

 probably in function also, and I would propose to distinguish it provisionally as the funnel type.

Now the female Cyrtauchenius is, like its near relatives the Nemesias, a sluggish and rather helpless creature, and shows no apparent physical superiority which might countenance its dispensing with the methods of concealment which form the characteristic habit of the group.

How then does this spider manage to escape its many enemies, especially the insidious attacks of the insects of the Sphex and Ichneumon families, which certainly abound in Morocco?

Mr. Wallace, to whom I put the question, suggested that this species may perhaps be chiefly nocturnal in its habits, and that, if this is the case, the bright white and flower-like tube of the nest may possibly serve to attract night flying insects, which would thus become its prey.

In any case, whether we can discover them or not, some curious points of difference must exist between this spider and its allies, which secure to it a comparative immunity.

It appears to me that there are few questions which can be of greater interest to the naturalist than those which have to do with the conditions determining the existence of a given species in a given place.

Of the questions, Who are your relatives? Where do they live? and How are you able to live here? surely the last is not the least important.

And, if we wish to try to answer this question, we must do all in our power to find out how the habits and conditions of life of the creature in question,