Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/40

 this genus is contained in a paper by M. Eugene Simon, who describes three species (two of which are new), as inhabiting France, and it remains to be ascertained whether our British Atypi agree in their characters with any of these.

He describes (p. 113-4) the nest and mode of life of Atypus piceus, Sulzer (=A. Sulzeri, Latr.), the commonest of the three species, as follows:—"They (the spiders) seek dry and somewhat sandy slopes, sometimes also woods, chiefly plantations of evergreens; their retreat is always concealed either by stones, or in moss which one must remove carefully and in large masses (plâques) in order to detect them."

"This Atypus excavates an oblique hole of 15 to 20 centimetres deep, and of the size of its body; it lines it with a rather narrow silken tube of a very close texture, the upper part of which, exceeding the subterranean portion in length, lies horizontally on the surface of the ground, and ends in an open tapering point. Near its lower extremity the tube is suddenly contracted, and then dilates into the form of a fairly spacious apartment, in which the spider lives; the cocoon enclosing the eggs is suspended by a few threads at the contraction. I have frequently surprised Atypus in the act of holding earth-worms in their falces, and I think that these Annelids constitute the larger part of their food; indeed, if one examines the lower portion of the silk chamber, one