Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/43

 may remark a part where the tissue is thinner and more transparent. I have not been able to detect an opening, but it is probable that the Atypus can easily part the not very compact threads, and thus obtain for itself an easy prey, and dispense with the necessity of ascending to the surface of the ground. When taken out of its tube, Atypus does not even attempt to escape; it is therefore plain that it is not organized for the pursuit of an active prey; and, on the other hand, the upper extremity of the tube is ill-adapted for an ambuscade, being almost closed, and without support. This small opening would seem to be solely intended for the entrance and exit of the male (a very much smaller creature than the female) during the breeding season, which occurs in the month of October."

M. Simon says that this species of Atypus is common in all the centre, east and west of France, and that he has detected it in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Troyes, in Champagne, in the month of October, when the male was inhabiting the same tube with the female. I am greatly indebted to M. Simon for having given me the specimen of a silk tube taken entire from a nest found in this locality, which I have figured in Plate XIII., fig. A. It will be seen that the tube has collapsed, but one may still trace the enlargement near the base which forms the chamber, the elbow where it is bent at the surface