Perhaps in no case is the concealment more complete than when dead leaves are employed to cover the door. In some cases a single withered olive leaf only is spun in and suffices to cover the trap; in others, several are woven together with bits of wood and roots, as in the accompanying woodcut, which represents different views of the upper door of the nest which is drawn in [Plate X.] p. 100.
Plate XI.
In this nest another interesting feature presents itself, for here the tube projects a short way beyond the surface of the ground and is hardened and coated with earth and fine gravel in such a way that it requires no other support. This is not commonly the case, and may perhaps be the result of a contrivance to meet the necessities of a nest which has had the surface earth washed away from it. But I have frequently observed nests in which the upper part of the tube is carried up for two or three inches through grass, moss, ferns, pellitory, or the like, the stems of the sheltering plants being interwoven with and made to support the tube.[68] In every case the second door, which is designed for resistance and requires a firm-walled tube into which it may be wedged, is below ground, and for the same reason we scarcely ever find cork nests constructed with any part of the tube projecting beyond the surface of the soil.
[68] This aërial portion of the tube corresponds with that of Atypus piceus described above ([p. 78]), but differs in having its aperture closed by a door.
At fig. A, [Plate XI.], one of these branched nests is seen concealed in a plant of ceterach fern, and here the tube is raised a short way above the soil; while in fig. B of the same plate the common form is represented, the upper door lying flat on the surface of the ground, from which, thanks to its covering of small mosses, it is scarcely to be distinguished.
The figs. B 1 and B 2 show this door open and the lower door in its two positions.