A LIST OF SPIDERS COLLECTED AT OBAN 109 



A LIST OF SPIDERS COLLECTED AT OBAN, 



ARGYLLSHIRE. 



By GEORGE H. CARPENTER, B.Sc., and WILLIAM EVANS, F.R.S.E. 



[INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY W. EVANS. The following is a 

 list of spiders collected by me in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Oban, during a short sojourn there namely from 

 I 3th April to 4th May in the spring of last year. 



That the district is rich in spiders can scarcely be doubted, 

 though I cannot say that they were as much in evidence at 

 the time of my visit as I had expected to find them. The 

 weather, however, was not so favourable as could have been 

 wished for, and very probably to this cause may be attributed 

 the somewhat scanty signs of both spider and insect life. 



Of the seventy species collected, only one, namely 

 Enoplognatha thoracica (Halm), is new to the Scottish list. 

 Several others, however, are of very considerable interest, 

 and even the commonest are worthy of record in view of the 

 imperfect state of our knowledge respecting their distribution 

 in North Britain. 



No section of the Scottish fauna will better repay investi- 

 gation than the spiders ; and our hope is that the present 

 fragmentary list from Oban may be the means of inducing 

 some naturalist resident in Argyllshire to turn his attention 

 to the group. Experience gained in other districts justifies 

 us in predicting as the reward of say a year's well-directed 

 research, the discovery not only of species new to Scotland 

 and to Britain, but also of some new to science. A systematic 

 examination of suitable spots from base to summit of one of 

 the higher mountains, Ben Cruachan for instance, would be 

 certain to yield most interesting results. 



As on former occasions, Mr. Carpenter has kindly over- 

 hauled the collection for me, and from his memoranda and 

 my own field-notes the subjoined list has been drawn up. 

 The identification of a few of the less easily recognised species 

 has been confirmed by the Rev. O. P. Cambridge. 



The arrangement and nomenclature are, with a few slight 

 exceptions, the same as in our Lists for Edinburgh and 



