Antipodes, and it may be regarded as one of the first fruits of a harvest which lies ready for the reaping of any naturalist resident in those parts. Hitherto the only nests which I have seen or heard of from Australia were of the cork type (Ants and Spiders, p. 132).
Next in order to the single-door branched wafer comes the double-door unbranched wafer type, which is the simplest of all the nests possessing two doors. This habitation, the work of N. Eleanora, has been already described (Ants and Spiders, p. 106), and I have not much to add to the account there given.
Perhaps some of my readers may remember that, while I was actually engaged on the proofs of Ants and Spiders I had one of these Eleanora spiders in captivity, and that I gave an account (p. 148) of her behaviour up to the latest moment possible. She had been captured on October 23, 1872, and placed, together with five young ones found with her in the nest, on the surface of some earth in a medium-sized flower-pot covered over with gauze. The young ones soon made nests for themselves in the earth, each furnished with its little door, but the mother roamed about on the surface of the soil, and it was not until she had been twenty-one days in captivity that she commenced spinning a silk cell.
This cell in twelve days' time presented the form of a rude figure of 8, and had an aperture at either end; it was just large enough to contain the spider when the legs were extended; its upper surface was attached to the gauze covering of the pot, and its lower to the earth. It was at this stage that the record was broken off, and I will now relate the remainder of the history.
