890 Mr. F. Enock on the 



going on with my nose and eyes almost close to the 

 ground, looking under tufts of grass at the base of 

 various bushes, until at last my attention was suddenly 

 arrested, for there was " the something hanging down 

 which looked like the cocoon of some moth." But now 

 a fresh difficulty arose ; Hampstead Heath was " pre- 

 served," and I thought that possibly I might get myself 

 into a " pickle " by " disturbing the soil." So I went to 

 the superintendent, and told him I had found the spiders, 

 and wanted to dig them up, and, as I was by this time 

 pretty well known to him, he soon gave me permission 

 to dig uj) my precious find. This I did after repeated 

 failures, the tubes being so delicate ; and I was re- 

 peatedly interrupted in my work by the usual Hampstead 

 ramblers, who are, to say the least, inquisitive. After 

 many trials I managed to box seven tubes, each con- 

 taining a female Atypus. 



Some of these I forwarded to Eev. 0. P. Cambridge 

 for identification : he replied "that he was not able to 

 identify them positively unless he saw the mature male," 

 but thought it might prove to be Atypus Beckii, as the 

 late Eichard Beck used to work Hampstead for spiders. 



I now had my work cut out, for my only directions 

 were : — " You might find them (the males) from October 

 to spring, I think, so far as I know ; they are never 

 found in a tube, but are wanderers, taking shelter by 

 day in any holes or corners, and among stones, debris, 

 &c." I must confess I did not see why the male should 

 not form a tube as well as the female, for, until it 

 reached maturity, it certainly would require a home of 

 its own. 



In going over the ground at Hampstead I soon found 

 that the colony of Atypi was much larger than I at first 

 imagined; but, like all so-called "rarities," they only 

 wanted looking for. I found the nests in the most 

 awkward places to get at — numbers just at the foot of 

 an old gorse bush, which I might not pull up to enable 

 me to get at them ; others concealed by stunted bushes 

 of wild sage, the tube going down between the roots, 

 and often just when I had reached to within an inch of 

 the end, mj' digger would catch an unlucky bit of root, 

 causing the tube to break short ofi", the spider escaping 

 by retiring by the back door, a habit they are particularly 

 fond of. 



