HAKDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



121 



A CANTERBtJEY AEACHNID, NEW TO THE BEITISH FAUNA. 



JS the continental engrav- 

 ings of Argus rejlexus 

 are not very satisfac- 

 tory, and I believe that 

 no figures from British 

 [specimens have ever 

 been published, I hope 

 those which I have now made 

 will be interesting to the readers 

 of SciEXCE-GossiP, and indeed 

 to English arachnologists gene- 

 rally. Eor details of the histo- 

 logical anatomy, the observations 

 of the Messrs. Gulliver should 

 be consulted in the Reports of 

 the East Kent Natural History 

 Society, of which abstracts 

 appear in tlic Quartcrlij Jojirnal 

 of Microscopical Science, April, 

 July, and October, 1872. Therein, among other 

 points, are described the curious oblong red cor- 

 puscles in the intestinal ca^ca ; the beautiful globules 

 of guanine in the urinary tubules, with a comparison 

 of these bodies in Argus and Ixodes ; the sperma- 

 tozoa of the last genus ; comparative measurement 

 of the eggs of both these genera ; and the composi- 

 tion of the dermal dots in Argus. This curious and 

 uncommon Arachnid was first introduced to the 

 notice of the East Kent Natural History Society on 

 March 27th, 1S71, specimens of which were given 

 to me by one of the vergers in Canterbury Cathe- 

 dral, and was reported as peculiar to that building 

 and as not having been seen elsewhere. The 

 Honorary Secretary, G. Gulliver, F.R.S., made a 

 cursory examination of them at the time, and at 

 once saw that as they had each eight legs, and the 

 head joiued to or consolidated with the thorax, they 

 were not insects, but belonged to the Spider class 

 {AracJudda). On his taking tlicm home for further 

 investigation, he failed to identify them with any 

 specillc description iu the systematic books then at 

 his command, and could make out nothing more 

 No. 114. 



about them, but they seemed to belong to the divi- 

 sion Acarina. He therefore sent specimens to an 

 entomological authority in London, who failed to 

 make them out, but pronounced them, in his opinion, 

 to be a sort of sheep-tick. But this was far from 



Fig. S2. Dorsal view of Argus rejitxus. 



being satisfactory; whereupon Mr. G. Gulliver, jun., 

 B.A., took some specimens with him to Oxford, and 

 submitted them to Professor Westwood for his in- 

 vestigation ; and this eminent entomologist was the 

 first to declare them to be the Argus reflexiis of 

 Latreille, who states that it occurs free in houses iu 

 Prance. 



Two specimens tliat I found on the wall of the 

 passage that leads from the Cathedral to the Library, 

 April 20th, 1872, I placed in a glass-topped box, in 

 which they lived for one year and ten months. On 

 June 27th, 1872, I found they had laid a large 

 number of eggs, which were quite round and of a 

 reddish-brown colour, smooth and very bright^ 

 having the appearance of small glass beads : the 

 mean diameter of the egg is i-31th of an inch. 



August 5tli, 1872.— 1 observed that a number of 

 the eggs were hatched, and in a short time the 

 whole of them were hatched out and briskly running 



G 



