78 TRAP-DOOR SPIDERS. 



Suheri)* and this creature does not appear to 

 deserve the name of trap -door spider, for in three 

 nests which M. H. Lucas kindly showed me, pre- 

 served at the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, the mouth 

 of the tube was destitute of any covering. I gathered 

 from what I saw, and from what M. Lucas told 

 me, that these nests [wdiich he had taken in the 

 neighbourhood of Paris], consist of a silk tube from 

 eight to ten inches long, of which about one inch 

 only at the lower extremity penetrates the earth, the 

 remainder being carried upwards in an irregular and 

 sinuous course among the stems and leaves of small 

 plants and grasses to which it is attached. When the 

 tube is removed from these supports it collapses, and 

 appears like a rather coarsely woven ribbon-shaped 

 strip of silk.f 



Four types of trap-door nest, properly so called, may 

 now be distinguished in the world at large, and these 

 are represented diagrammatically in the following 

 "woodcut. \ 



* Unless it should prove, as Prof. Ausserer suggests, tliat the British 

 .^ ^?/pMs is distinct from the Continental, when it would bear the name of 

 Atypus Blachwallii. (Ausserer, 1. c. p. 17). 



1 1 have never been able to meet with an English specimen of the nest of 

 A typus ; but it would appear from the descriptions that the English differ 

 from the French nests in being subterranean, and in having the mouth of the 

 tube concealed by a loose flap of silk. Mr. Blackwall saj's : [Spiders of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, part i. p. 14] "Dr. Leech has taken specimens 

 of A typus Suheri in ths vicinity of London and Exeter. It excavates, in 

 humid situations, a subterraneous gallery, which is at first horizontal, but 

 inclines downwards towards its termination. In this gallery it spins a tube 



of white silk, of a compact texture, about half inch in diameter 



Part of the tube hangs outside of the aperture to jirotect the entrance." 



It would be interesting to learn whether these differences permanently 

 distinguish the English from the French nests, and if so, whether the spiders 

 which construct them are not, as Prof. Ausserer is inclined to believe, dis- 

 tinct also. 



t Where all the figures, except C 1, and D 1, which are of the natural 

 size, are reduced to about one-third of the actual size in large specimens. 



