944 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 J 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.” 
Il 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 myselfin 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 Aptéres,’ thus records its 
economy al 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 
ee 
