This agreed with the fact that no very small nests were observed, and it seems probable that the young are not turned out of their nursery quite so early as some of their relations are at Mentone. This, however, varies perhaps in accordance with changes of climate and local conditions.
We failed to detect any other type of nest at Bordeaux than the one described above: and even the cork nests, which we had shortly before seen in such abundance at Montpellier, were apparently absent.
Bordeaux is by far the north-westernmost point in Europe[139] at which any spider constructing a true trap-door nest has as yet been discovered; and the fact that they exist in a climate so different from that of the Riviera and of the whole Mediterranean region, leads me to hope that their range may in reality be much more widely extended than has hitherto been supposed to be the case.
[Footnote 139: Cork nests have however been mentioned as occurring in the neighbourhood of Lyons, which lies in nearly the same parallel of latitude with Bordeaux.]
A glance at the vegetation of this district will suffice to show how little there is that betokens either a warm or dry winter climate; for here the myrtles, oranges and olives are left far behind, and in their place we see tall hedgerow elms, and poplars bearing mistletoe on their branches.
Here therefore we are met by the question, How do these Bordeaux spiders contrive to live under conditions so different from those to which their relations on the Riviera have adapted themselves? How do they bear the cold and damp of the long winter, and how is it that one frail upper door suffices to protect their nest from molestation?
The thick coating of dead leaves, which covered the banks even when we found them, no doubt aids largely in their concealment, and the colder climate probably diminishes the number of their enemies, but their means of subsistence are most likely also less abundant and their period of active life shorter.
The next type we have to consider is a totally new one, and may be distinguished as the _single-door branched wafer nest_. I detected this nest at Montpellier but a few days before the visit to Bordeaux alluded to above.
Circumstances unfortunately prevented me from following up my discovery as closely as I could have wished, and it appears moreover that this nest is far less common at Montpellier than the typical cork nest (_Nemesia cæmentaria_).