THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 247 
the silky tube; which 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 the Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge 
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 descriptions of a trap-door spider 
inhabiting the Ionian Islands, which he has called Cteniza 
Tonica. (See vol. iii. p. 160, pl. 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 by 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 
lerrace-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 
“aie 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 :— 
