THE BRITISH TRAP-DOOR SPIDER.
23
more plentiful in the 13th century. With regard to the goshawk,
if we consider the small number of times it is mentioned as com-
pared with the sparrow-hawk, we might say that it may have
bred sparingly in the County.
On two occasions, 1224-5 and 1239-40, we find the sum of
2/- fixed as an alternative payment to a sparrow-hawk, which
gives us a clue to its value. Unfortunately this does not occur
in connection with the goshawk.
A section of the fines refers to "Divers Counties," but I have
dealt only with those which apply purely to the County of Essex.
NOTES ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE
BRITISH TRAP-DOOR SPIDER, ATYPUS AFFINIS,
IN EPPING FOREST.
By HUGH MAIN, B.Sc., F.E.S.
(With Plate II.)
[Read 29th October, 1921.]
MOGGRIDGE, in his interesting book, Harvesting Ants
and Trap-door Spiders (published in 1873), says:—
"The great group of trap-door spiders comprises spiders
which differ widely in respect of their dwelling places. Some
construct no nest at all or only an irregular web; others make
a simple cylindrical tunnel or a tube having a prolonged un-
covered funnel-shaped mouth; others again, belonging to the
genus Atypus, form curious nests with a silken tubular lining,
part of which hangs down outside, while on the higher rung of
the architectural ladder stand the builders of the veritable
trap-door nests."
All these trap-door spiders have structural characters separat-
ing them from the other groups. One of these points, easily
noticeable, is the arrangement of the falces or mandibles, which
have the fangs directed downwards, and move vertically parallel
to one another, while in the other groups the fangs are directed
towards one another in a horizontal plane.
The first discoverer of Atypus in England was Joshua Brown.
In 1856 he found several nests in the neighbourhood of Hastings.
An exhaustive account of the life and habits of this spider
was published by the late F. Enock in Trans. Ent. Soc. for 1885
(pp. 389-420). Enock discovered it on Hampstead Heath in