THE BRITISH TRAP-DOOR SPIDER. 
109 
THE BRITISH TRAP-DOOR SPIDER 
ATYPIJS SULZERI. 
This grand Spider, the only representative found in Great Britain 
of that most interesting family the Mygalidse, is generally looked upon 
as a great rarity, but I am inclined to think that if entomologists 
would search for it, it would be found on or about most heaths, and in 
sandy lanes on the banks facing S. or S.W. 
At Hampstead Heath, London, I first found it March 26th, 1876, 
scattered about in various parts of that once “ happy hunting ground,” 
but now, alas! many of the hillocks have been levelled, the hollows where 
bees and spiders loved to congregate have been filled up by “ The 
Board ” with dust-bin refuse, all the bog (through which it was such a 
pleasure to walk in search of Drosera and Petasites) has been drained 
bone dry, so that now the little costers from the East End can walk 
over dry shod though their feet have only nature’s covering. With all 
these improvements (?) can we wonder that insects and flowers once 
found in plenty have quite disappeared, and yetholds 
its ground, perhaps from the fact of its boring and forming its wonder¬ 
ful “ tube,” just at the foot of a nice prickly and stunted gorse bush, 
not a pleasant place for a seat, or for the entomologist to dig the tube 
out. 
I quite expected to find Atypus in this wild neighbourhood, and on 
April 12th, whilst minutely scanning a S.W. hank, I noticed a very 
small silken tube projecting from a hole in the hard sand; there was 
no mistaking it, and by a careful search on this and other S.W. banks, 
I noticed a large number of tubes of all ages, some of which I dug 
out measuring 10 inches in length, these I have “ set ” in a turf bank 
facing south, which I have made in my garden, where I hope to ob¬ 
serve and gather some of the links in the little-known economy of 
this most interesting spider. 
Ferndale, Woking Station. Fred. Enock. 
THE ALLUVIAL AND DRIFT DEPOSITS OF THE 
LEEN VALLEY. 
BY .TAAIES SHIPMAN. 
(Continued from page 79,) 
A similar succession of deposits was met with in the bed of the Leen 
at Old Basford, a mile and a half further up the valley. Here two 
such large excavations for gasholders were made side by side, affording 
a continuous section of the strata for a length of over 120 yards from 
east to west across the valley.’^ (Fig. 2.) The site of the excavations 
was midway between New and Old Basford, and just on the edge of 
* For facilities kindly afforded me in my examination of these sections from 
time to time my thanks are due to Mr. M. O. Tarbotton, C.E., Engineer to the 
Nottingham Corporation Gas and Water Works, and to his courteous Clerk of 
Works, Mr. F, Phillips. 
