1888.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. • 203 



NESTING HABITS OF THE AMERICAN PURSEWEB SPIDER.i 

 BY REV. HENRY C. MCCOOK D. D. 



Genus ATYPUS. 

 Atypus Abbotii <AValck). 



1792. Purse Web Spider Abbot. Mss. drawings of Georgia In- 

 sects, Vol. xiv, PI. 8, No. 36, 

 Zool. Lib. Brit. Mas. Nat. 

 Hist. 

 1837. Sphodros Abbotii Walk. His. Nat. des Ins. Apt. Vol. i, 



p. 247. 

 1842. Atypus niger Hentz. Jour. Bost, Soc. Nat. Hist. Vol. iv, 



p. 224, p. 2, viii. 

 1875. Atypus niger Hentz, Spid. of the U. S. p. 19, PI. ii, fig. 1. 



During a visit to Florida in April 1886, I had the pleasure of 

 observing in natural site for the first time the nests of Abbot's 

 Atypus, an aranead heretofore known as the black Atypus, or Atypus 

 niger of Hentz. I had possessed for a number of years specimens 

 of the long tubes in which this creatui-e dwells ^ concerning Avhich I 

 only knew that they were reported as being spun along the outside 

 of the trunks of trees. 



I. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



The field of observation was on the plantation of Dr. William 

 Wittfeld,^ at the lower part of Merrit's Island, which is situated be- 

 tween the Indian and Banana Rivers, a few miles south of Cape 

 Canaveral. A large number of specimens were collected, some of 

 which are submitted for insj^ection. The species is distributed 

 widely throughout the state of Florida, is found in Georgia, and 

 probably in the Southern Atlantic States. 



The female of this Atypus has not heretofore been described, al- 

 though it has recently come to light that it was known and figured 

 nearly a century ago by Mr. John Abbot, an Englishman settled 

 in Savannah, Georgia, during the latter part of the last century * 



^ The substance of this paper was given as a verbal communication before the 

 last meeting (1887) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at 

 Manchester, England. 



^ I had Floridian examples of the nest from Professor Riley the Entomologist 

 of the Agriculture Bureau; and also from Dr. George Marx of Washington. 



* Fairyland, Georgiana, Brevard Co. Fla. 



* See the author's paper in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1888, p. 74, on Necessity 

 for Revising the Nomenclature of American Orbweaving Spiders. 



