244 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



would keep her door shut against the efforts of an enemy; 

 for what would have been the use of having them in the tube, 

 close to the lid, so that not the eighth of an inch intervenes 

 between the series of the lid and that of the tube, when the 

 former is tightly closed. 1 would suggest whether they may 

 not be air-holes, for so tight is the fitting of the lid, and so 

 compact the texture of the material, that I should suppose the 

 interior would be impermeable to air but for this contrivance ; 

 and as those in the horizontal lid might possibly be closed by 

 minute particles of earth rolling on it, the second row around 

 the edge of the perpendicular tube, just at the surface of 

 the ground, would still be available in such a contingency. 

 They may admit also an appreciable amount of light." 



I am not disposed to pursue the subject of these minute 

 holes further than to say that these holes suggest to my mind 

 the idea of a needle and thread having been passed through 

 and through, and the needle and thread subsequently with- 

 drawn. But I will here mention the occurrence in Britain of 

 a spider closely allied to the trap-door makers, the particulars 

 respecting which were communicated to the Linnean Society 

 by myself in February, 1856, and were subsequently published 

 in the 'Zoologist' for that year (Zool. 5021). This spider is 

 Atypus Sulzeri of Latreille, the Oletera atypa of Walckener ; 

 and a full account of its doings is given from the observations 

 of Mr. Joshua Brown, of Cirencester, who suggests that it was 

 feeding on an earth-worm at the time of capture. A female 

 only was obtained, the males eluding the most diligent 

 search ; and Mr, Brown expresses his wonder where they 

 could possibly secrete themselves. There is no trap-door to 

 the domicile of this spider, which consists simply of a single 

 tube constructed in the earth. Walckener, in the first volume 

 of ' Histoire Naturelle des Insectes Apteres,' thus records its 

 economy at page 244 : — 



"The female constructs, in rather moist places, a subter- 

 ranean gallery, first in a horizonal direction, and then turning 

 downwards. In the interior of this gallery she constructs a 

 very close, white, silken tube, which she strengthens with bits 

 of grass and moss ; and at the bottom of this she deposits her 

 eggs in an oval mass, enveloped in a web of white silk, and 

 fixed by threads at each end. She leaves part of the tube 

 hanging out of the hole to protect the entrance : this external 



