THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 247 



the silky tube ; winch one would have reasonably expected, 

 had the spider subsisted on an insect-diet. The most rigid 

 search revealed nothing of the kind. Still I am reluctant to 

 believe in the vermivorous appetite of the spider, without 

 more conclusive evidence than we at present possess. 



A male Atypus Sulzeri was taken from a rabbit-earth while 

 ferretting in the neighbourhood of Bloxworth, in January, 

 1857, and was transmitted by theRev. O. Pickard-Carabridge 

 to Mr. Mead, of Bradford, and recorded in the ' Zoologist' for 

 that year (Zool. 5624). 



The late Mr. Sells, in the Transactions of the Entomolo- 

 gical Society of London has, in a paper intituled, "Notes 

 respecting the Nest of Cteniza nidulans," entered into many 

 details concerning these interesting spiders; and Sir Sidney 

 Smith Saunders, the present President of the Entomological 

 Society, has given, in the Transactions of that Society, 

 admirable figures and descriplions of a trap-door spider 

 inhabiting the Ionian Islands, which he has called Cteniza 

 lonica. (See vol. iii. p. IGO, pi. ix.) Sir Sidney Saunders 

 has also greatly distinguished himself as a most painstaking 

 observer, by his researches into the economy of those minute 

 parasitic Coleoptera which prey on bees. 



Mr. Moggeridge's admirable work, intituled, 'Harvesting 

 Ants and Trap-door Spiders,' published in 1873, throws con- 

 siderable light on these interesting spiders. 1 must content 

 myself with two short quotations: — 



" The nests are exceedingly difficult to find, and in some 

 cases it is only b}' chance that I have been able to light on 

 them. All these trap-door spiders seem usually to prefer 

 rather moist and shady places and sloping banks, or loose 

 terrace-walls, where the interstices between the stones are 

 filled up with earth, and concealment is afforded by the 

 creeping Lycopodium (Selaginella denticulata), Ceterach 

 spleen-wort, or maidenhair ferns, with short moss and 

 splashes of white lichen to distract the eye." {Moggeridge, 

 p. 91.) 



Mr. Moggeridge goes on to describe different forms of 

 nest; and afterwards refers to the well-known habit of the 

 trap- door spider of keeping the door closed by holding on 

 from within. He relates his own experience in these 

 words : — 



