Indeed there is only one theraphosid spider that there is the least likelihood of our coming across in this country. Their true home is in hotter climes, and though stragglers from their army are not rare in the warmer portions of temperate regions, they abound only in tropical countries. They include the “Trap-door” spiders, common in the Mediterranean region and in many other widely distant parts of the world, and the great “Bird-eating” spiders of the tropics—the spiders which are quite wrongly but universally alluded to in America as Tarantulas. The single British example is well worth the study of any reader who is fortunate enough to come across it. But he must first catch his hare, for _Atypus affinis_ (or _piceus_ as it used to be called) does not grow in every hedge-row, nor is it easy to find it where it does occur. Most of the localities recorded are in the south of England. It is a thick-set dark-coloured spider about half an inch in length, and with very thick, powerful mandibles, which, as we have seen, work vertically. Its nest is a loosely-woven tubular structure, which partly lines a more or less vertical hole in the ground and partly lies exposed on the surface, but which does not present any obvious opening for entrance and exit. The situation chosen is generally a sloping sandy bank covered with vegetation. The burrow is about eight inches in depth and about three quarters of an inch in diameter. Near the bottom it narrows and then expands into a somewhat wider chamber where the spider lives and constructs its egg-cocoon. The portion of the tube above the ground is sometimes longer but more often shorter than the buried portion, and it tapers to a closed end. Mr Joshua Brown, who first found this spider near Hastings in 1856, took home several of the tubes with the spiders inside. He could find no opening, and though the spiders moved up and down the tubes they did not emerge. On tearing a tube open he found no remains of insects inside, but in one case he came across a worm, partly within, and partly outside the lower part of the tube, and apparently partially devoured by the spider. The same species is not rare in France and M. Simon’s observations on it closely agreed with those of Mr Brown. He believed that the spider chiefly depended for its food on earthworms which, in the course of their burrowings, came casually into its neighbourhood. Since these observations, however, considerable light has been thrown on the habits of the spider by Enock, who found colonies on Hampstead Heath and near Woking. His investigations extended over several years, and wonderful patience was needed before the secrets of this curious animal were divulged.