At Mentone two distinct spiders construct nests of the cork type, one of these being a Nemesia and the other a Cteniza. They are as unlike each other as they well can be, and it seems remarkably strange that their nest-building instinct should be so similar. The nest of the Cteniza is indeed shallower than that of the Nemesia, and a practised eye can usually trace a difference between the slightly less angular lower surface and more semicircular outline of the door of the former, and the more abruptly bevelled and more circular door of the latter.
These spiders and their nests have been already described and figured in Ants and Spiders under the names of Ct. fodiens and Nemesia cæmentaria. Recent discoveries have however shown that these spiders possess distinctive characters of their own, and, though closely allied to the species indicated, should be separated from them.
Last spring when pulling down an old terrace-wall (by permission) I had the good fortune to discover the very remarkable male Cteniza drawn at fig. A, Pl. XX., p. 254. I found no trace of a nest or web of any kind, and the spider was merely hiding between the stones.
There appears to be scarcely any doubt that this is the male of the female Mentonese Cteniza which has, up to this time, been called Ct. fodiens. A comparison with typical specimens of the true Ct. fodiens from Corsica, has however shown that the two are certainly distinct, and Mr. Pickard-Cambridge[1] now*
- ↑ Mr. Pickard-Cambridge has once more kindly undertaken the task of
