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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



tion, except a little alum and pepper; it has stood 

 on a shelf in the kitchen, without case or cover, 

 where the temperature is pretty high, to this time 

 entirely uninjured; while rarer birds, upon which 

 I have employed every care in skinning, preserving, 

 and casing, have long ago gone to utter decay, 



Jos. R. Wallace. 

 Cumberland Museum, near Whitehaven. 



DARKLING SPIDERS. 



TN Science-Gossip for January, Mr. J. R. S. 

 -*- Clifford asks some questions not very easy to 

 answer, in regard to the food, &c, of spiders which 

 inhabit dark unused cellars, from which perhaps light 

 is shut out for months together. Mr. Clifford also 

 asks why such spiders spin webs, seeing that few, 

 it any, insects ever approach them ; and suggests 

 that these spiders come out on hunting expeditions 

 to obtain food, and that the only use of the webs is 

 as habitations. 



I now beg to introduce to the readers of Science- 

 Gossip another darkling spicier, which lives under 

 circumstances similar to Mr. Clifford's pets, with 

 this difference, that whereas his live in the base- 

 ment of a house, mine lives several hundred feet 

 below the surface of the ground, in a darkness 

 which has never been broken by the slightest ray 

 of daylight, and so seldom by artificial light, that 

 probably several generations of spiders may be 

 born, live, and die without having seen light at all. 

 To Mr. Clifford's remains the liberty of coming out 

 when they choose ; of mine may be said — 



" Superasque evadere ad auras, 

 Hoc opus, hie labor est." 



This dweller in Cimmerian darkness is the little 

 Neriene errans, and its chosen habitation is some of 

 the Durham coalpits, in one of which I had the 

 pleasure of making its acquaintance some years ago. 



Before, however, narrating my experience in re- 

 gard to it, I will give one or two extracts from a 

 paper by Mi - . Meade, in the '"'Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History" for July, I860. Extensive 

 masses of web-like tissue had often been noticed in 

 some of the northern collieries, but had always 

 been considered to be the mycelium of some fungus, 

 till my friend, Mr. D. P. Morison's duties, in con- 

 nection with the Pelton colliery, brought these 

 masses to his notice. Mr. Morison's entomological 

 knowledge led him to suspect the true origin of 

 the web-like layers ; and, to satisfy himself, he sent 

 specimens to Mr. Stainton, who forwarded them to 

 Mr. Meade. A correspondence then ensued between 

 Mr. Morison and Mr. Meade, the result of which 

 was the above-mentioned paper in the " Annals," 

 from which I extract the following : — 



" The mine in which these spiders and their webs 

 are found is called the Pelton Colliery. The seam of 



coal averages 4 feet 6 inches in thickness, and is 320 

 feet below the surface of the ground ; about seventy- 

 five horses and ponies are employed in the mine ; 

 and Mr. Morison suggests that the insects upon 

 which the spiders live are conveyed down with the 

 fodder for the horses. He also tells me that ' the 

 spiders themselves are to be found in the waste, or 

 parts of the pit not actually at work ; and the webs 

 are generally spun in galleries through which little 

 or no air passes. The spiders seem to be quite 

 gregarious, as whenever a rent has been made in 

 any of these productions, they might be counted by 

 scores together (so our wastemen tell me) repairing 

 the damage. They seem to be, in spite of their 

 dark existence, very susceptible to light, and the 

 appearance of a lamp produces no small commotion 

 among them.' 



"It is an exceedingly interesting fact that a 

 minute spider, ordinarily living in the open fields, 

 should find its way to such a depth beneath the 

 surface of the ground, and multiply to such an 

 extent as to be able to construct, by the united 

 labour of hundreds, immense sheets of web, stretch- 

 ing through all the deserted subterranean galleries. 

 It seems that this little creature, at the same time 

 that it shifted its abode, must also have acquired 

 new instincts, becoming social and gregarious in 

 its habits, and thus departing from the manners of 

 most of the spider tribe, which are usually solitary, 

 except when quite young. It may be said that 

 numerous and large spiders' webs are often met 

 with in other dark underground places besides coal- 

 pits (as cellars, caves, &c.) ; but these are always 

 constructed by larger species, each individual living 

 separately, and having its own web ; the spiders 

 forming them may also mostly be referred to the 

 genus Tegenaria, to which our common house-spider 

 belongs." 



Now for my introduction to the Xeriene "at 

 home." 



When on a visit to Mr. Morison, in 1S6G, he 

 suggested that we should go and see the spiders, a 

 proposition to which I at once agreed. So arraying 

 ourselves in the appropriate habiliments, we de- 

 scended the pit, and having been provided with 

 safety lamps, proceeded to the " waste." Persons 

 who have been into such a place need not be fold 

 that the silence that reigns there is profound ; 

 but to those who, like myself, have never before 

 been down a coal-pit, it is perfectly appalling, 

 especially when the thought arises, that if the roof 

 of the galleries (which was in some places so un- 

 pleasantly low as to entail a mode of locomotion 

 more suited to quadrupeds than bipeds) were to 

 "cave in," what an unpleasant predicament we 

 should be in ! Such silence I had never before 

 experienced ; but since then I have been in an 

 equally silent, but far different place, the " Jardin" 

 of Mont Blanc. 



