312 F. P. SMITH ON SOME BRITISH SPIDERS TAKEN IN 1908. 



that a great deal of ingenuity and an abundant experience are 

 both very necessary as qualifications for successful collecting. 

 The expert, also, can generally form some opinion as to what 

 species he is likely to meet with in any particular district and 

 season, and can modify his methods accordingly. As an instance 

 of this, I was recently initiating a friend into the subtleties of 

 spider-collecting, and^during the course of an autumn ramble we 

 found a brickfield plentifully littered with fragments of broken 

 tiles. These I began to turn over, and obtained quite a number 

 of Erigone and allied spiders ; my friend imitated me, but 

 invariably turned up a blank. Careful observation revealed the 

 reason, and I pointed out that he turned the tiles too suddenly, 

 with the result that the little spiders became alarmed, fell into 

 the grass, and were thus lost. The next spring we were on 

 St. Leonard's beach turning pieces of rock, under which Gnaphosae 

 lurked in considerable numbers. Again I was successful, and 

 again my friend had no luck. He somewhat indignantly re- 

 minded me of my remarks of the previous autumn, when I 

 attributed his present want of success to the fact that he did not 

 turn his pieces of reck quickly enough ; but I was easily able to 

 justify my statements by a few experiments. The rocks under 

 which the Gnaphosae were concealed lay upon a pebbly beach, the 

 spiders being enclosed in 'silken sacs attached both to the rocks 

 and the pebbles. As soon as the rock was lifted the silk was 

 torn, and the spicier at once attempted to disappear amongst the 

 pebbles. The! only method, therefore, of making a successful 

 capture was to turn the rock as suddenly as possible and seize 

 the spider before it could escape. 



The di fficulty i of obtaining comprehensive literature dealing 

 with the British spiders is so frequently put forward as a serious 

 obstacle to the study of this order that a word or two concerning 

 this matter may not be out of place. It is an undoubted fact 

 that a m onograph of the British spiders would be of enormous 

 value to t he few workers interested in the Araneidea. But the 

 cost of such a work would be very great, as the figures of the 

 specific characters of each sex, apart from any other illustrations, 

 would number about one thousand ; and the demand would be 

 so limited that considerable financial loss would, I think, be 

 inevitable. Again, the nomenclature of the group is, at present, 

 in a rather unstable condition, and it might, therefore, be 



