life-liistory of A t>/pus piceus. 405 



up, in August and September, with earwigs, flavoured 

 with a few woodHce. 



Having meiitioned a few of the dehcacies which form 

 the food of the spider, the next important question, and 

 one which hitherto has not been answered, is— How does 

 the spider obtain its food ? 



The Eev. 0. P. Cambridge, in his ' Spiders of Dorset,'* 

 writes: — "The young of Atypus piceus live with their 

 mother in their tubular abode for a considerable time 

 after they are hatched, coming out at times for air and 

 exercise, and fed by insects brought into the tube by 

 their parent. At least so I conclude, from having found 

 the debris of beetles and earwigs in the tube along with 

 the young brood of spiders." 



I venture to entirely disagree with this. I do not 

 think the young ever return to the maternal abode after 

 making their exit in April ; neither do I think it possible 

 for the female spider to leave and return to the tube 

 loaded with food for its young. We have but to look at 

 the form of its body and legs to see at once how 

 unadapted they are for walking even on a level surface, 

 much less up a steep bank. My opinion is that the 

 female 7iever quits its tube ; certainly not in search of 

 food ; but if a large stone or other hard substance 

 should prevent its downward boring, it might, possibly, 

 under such circumstances, leave its nest.f I have tried 

 running a stick in a diagonal direction towards the end 

 of the tube, and so compelling the occupant to quit, 

 which it did, forcing the aerial end open, always 

 falling headlong down the bank, seemingly unable to 



* ' Spiders of Dorset,' by Eev. O. P. Cambridge. See p. xxxiii 

 of Introduction. 



f But even under such circumstances the spider shows very 

 great reh;ctance to leave the original ti;be. On October 15th, 1883, 

 I found one, three inches long, containing a mature female, in a 

 bank having l)ut a shallow depth of soil below it the . hard yellow- 

 sandstone, into which the spider had bored. I had to cut a solid 

 piece off to enable me to lift the tube out of the hole. {Exmnple.) 

 — Whenever I have compelled a female to quit her tube, she has 

 always left her siken threads behind ; and I think that if she was 

 in the habit of leaving her tube to go marketing (as some con- 

 clude she does), she certainly would not ventm-e out in the dark 

 without leaving her cord behind. But thoiigh I have examined 

 numbers of tubes, the first thing in the morning before the dew is 

 off either the grass or other spider's webs, I have never met with 

 any such unmistakeable proof in connection with Atijpiis. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 18b5. PART IV. (DEC.) 2 F 



