Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/124

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ordinary cork nests, but has a short spur-like projection above and behind the hinge, serving, as is conjectured, like a lever, by pressing on which from the outside the lid may easily be raised.[1] When I come to speak of the manner of constructing and repairing nests I shall have occasion to refer to these nests again.

I have not as yet found any nests on the Riviera which can be said to correspond accurately with those of Ct. ionica, the only builders of cork nests yet discovered in this district being Cteniza fodiens and Nemesia cæmentaria.

This latter species is described by Mr. Pickard-Cambridge,[2] in the following terms:—


Gen. Nemesia (Savigny).

Nemesia cæmentaria. Plate IX.

Syn. Mygale cæmentaria (Latr.), H. N. des Crust. t. vii. p. 164.

M. cæmentaria (Walck), Ins. Apt. i. p. 135.

Female adult, length 9 to 11 lines.

Cephalothorax rather elongate, oval, and somewhat truncated at each extremity; the caput is elevated and rounded on the sides and upper part, but less elevated than in Cteniza; the normal grooves and indentations are well marked, and the junction of the cephalic and thoracic segments is indicated by a strong deep impression or cleft, of a transverse, curved, or somewhat bent angular form, the curve or angle directed forwards. The colour of the cephalothorax is yellow-brown tinged with olive, the margins are paler, but have no distinctly defined marginal band. On the hinder part of the caput are three clear brown-yellow longitudinal stripes; the central one reaches from behind the two hind central eyes to the thoracic junction, the lateral ones converge a little to

  1. I must own to some hesitation about accepting this explanation, though I am not prepared to offer any other.
  2. See above, p. 88.