12 F. P. SMITH ON THE BRITISH SPIDERS OF THE GENUS LYCOSA. 



The almost entire omission of synonyms, as practised by some 

 authors, cannot, of course, be supported, and the elimination of 

 references to works of early date is objectionable, as there is, 

 undoubtedly, a great deal of revision yet necessary in the matter 

 of nomenclature, and in this connection the early authors will 

 have to be most carefully studied. It is, however, often a matter 

 of the greatest difficulty to satisfactorily decide, from the alto- 

 gether insufficient descriptions and purely superficial figures of 

 the early writers, the identity of the species to which their names 

 were applied, and there is, in many cases, ample evidence that, 

 owing partly to the imperfection of the available optical appli- 

 ances and partly to the small amount of attention paid to obscure 

 structural details, two or more species were often included under 

 one name. Of course, for the purposes of the practical student, 

 the more modern writings of Continental authors are invaluable ; 

 but references to several of the most important of such works will 

 generally suffice, without the necessity for burdening our synonyms 

 with details culled from faunistic publications. In the following 

 list I have selected the synonyms after careful consideration of 

 these various points, and I have included, wherever they exist, 

 references to the following works : — 



1757. Clerck, Svenska Spindlar. 



1758. Linnaeus, Systema JYaturae, Ed. X. 



1831 — 1848. Hahn, C. W., & Koch, C. L., Die Arachniden. 



1861. Westring, N., Araneae Suecicae. 



1861 — 1864. Blackwall, J., A History of the Spiders of Great 



Britain and Ireland. 

 1866 — 1879. Menge, A., " Preussische Spinnen," in Schriften der 



Natarforschende Gesellschaft zic Dantzig. 

 1870 — 1873. Thorell, T., Remarks on Synonyms of European 



Spiders. 

 1874 — 1884. Simon, E., Les Arachnides de France. 

 1879—1881. Cambridge, 0. P. The Spiders of Dorset. 

 1892 — 1897. Chyzer, C, & Kulczynski, L., Araneae Hun- 



gariae. 



I have made no attempt to give definite details of distribution. 

 So few British areas have been at all systematically worked that 

 anything more than general remarks would be useless and pro- 

 bably misleading. For details as to collecting and preparing 



