[137] Mr. J. Blackwall, Researches in Zoology, ed. 2, 1873; chapter on "The Poison of the Araneidea," pp. 240-256.
Mr. Treadwell informed me that these Californian trap-door spiders leave their nests in the daytime, and may be seen walking by the roadside, though they are always prepared to hurry back to their nests on the approach of danger.
I received the spider which I have represented at fig. B, [Pl. XV], p. 198 (Cteniza Californica), from this gentleman alive, and still within the remaining portion of her nest, on the 6th of July, 1873. She then had the legs and cephalothorax of a brownish-black, and the abdomen of a dull, uniform, dusky chocolate brown, but with an indistinct median line near the anterior end on the upper side, intersected at right angles by a shorter line. Mr. Treadwell said, however, that when captured, this spider was much darker, and of a pitchy black colour. The hairs all over the body were short, but especially so on the abdomen, which had the appearance of cloth or felt.
This creature in many ways recalls Cteniza fodiens of Corsica, and in a less degree the Cteniza of Mentone and San Remo.
We find not only the same general form of body, but also the same claws furnished with only one tooth, instead of many as in Nemesia, and other distinctive features; and it is interesting to observe in the nest that the more semi-circular form of the door and the wider hinge also connect it rather with Cteniza than with Nemesia.
Here, as in all spiders yet observed in cork nests, we find the habit of resisting any attempt to open the door, and many a time when I have wished to raise the lid in order to drop in flies or other food, I have been obliged to desist because the bending blade of my penknife showed that I should injure the nest if I used greater force.
No doubt the shallowness of the nest is an advantage to its occupant in one way—namely, that it enables the spider to start up at the shortest notice, and cling on to the door.
It is curious to find that, far as California is removed from the Riviera, the same habits of construction and self-defence are common to the spiders of both countries, and that the bond of kinship sets time and space at defiance.
I kept this spider all through the summer and early autumn at Richmond (Surrey), sprinkling the nest from time to time with water, and constantly supplying its inhabitant with flies, wood-lice, grasshoppers, earwigs, and other similar dainties. She did not, however, seem eager for food, and the insects provided for her, and actually placed within the nest, were often turned out again almost untouched.