OUR NATIVE REPRESENTATIVE 



as Territelarice, or "underground weavers." In England we 

 have no trap-door-making spiders, but the tribe is repre- 

 sented by one species which works in the same way as its 

 more talented relatives up to a certain point, though it has 

 not hit upon the idea of fitting a door to its dwelling. This 

 spider, called Atypus Sulzeri, was, I believe, first found in the 

 neighbourhood of London and Exeter. You are not likely 

 to meet with it very often, but perhaps it is commoner than 

 it is generally supposed to be, for its house is not as a rule a 

 conspicuous object in the landscape, and the number of 

 people who go out of their way to make friends of spiders 

 is not large ; on the contrary, most people go out of their 

 way to avoid them, and thereby are the losers at least, 

 that must be the opinion of everybody who has the privilege 

 of being even moderately well acquainted with these delight- 

 ful and learned creatures. 



Atypus Sulzeri is an unobtrusive little spider that usually 

 makes its home in banks where the earth is moist, digging a 

 subterranean gallery which starts almost horizontally, but 

 curves downwards a little towards the inner end. In this 

 tunnel it spins a compact tube of whitish silk, about half an 

 inch in diameter, which completely lines the cavity. The 

 tube does not stop short at the mouth of the burrow, but is 

 continued for several inches over the surface of the ground. 

 It is sometimes described as being closed at both ends, and 

 sometimes as having the external end left open. I have 

 only once, and that many years ago, come upon a nest of 

 this spider, which I found in a damp hedge-bank in Hamp- 

 shire, not very far from Selborne. 1 There was a rent or slit 

 in the top of the tube near the free end, but as the spider 

 was " not at home " it would be unsafe to draw any conclu- 

 sions from that one single instance. Perhaps the owner had 



1 J. L. 

 19 



