Spiders and their Webs in Coal-pits. 23 



On the 7th of February last I received a small spider from 

 Mr. Stainton, the learned editor of the ' Entomologists' Annual/ 

 accompanied by a note stating that it had been sent to him to 

 be named, by a correspondent who gave the following account 

 of it : — " It is the insect which spins those enormous and com- 

 pact sheets of web in all our northern collieries; and I feel 

 interested in it, for I believe that some eminent naturalists have 

 contended that these webs were not the production of a spider, 

 but fungi." The spider was a minute species of Neriene, not 

 quite the eighth of an inch in length, which had become dry 

 and shrivelled, so that it was impossible to determine its specific 

 name. I wrote word to that effect to Mr. Stainton, and also 

 said that it seemed highly improbable that such a small spider 

 could construct large masses of web, even if the structures in 

 question were really the production of spiders at all, which I 

 doubted, but which question, I added, might easily be settled 

 by examining some of them with the microscope. 



On the 16th of February I received another communication 

 on this subject, from Mr.- David P. Morison, of Pelton Colliery, 

 Chester-le- Street, Durham (the gentleman who had written to 

 Mr. Stainton). He enclosed in a letter a living specimen of the 

 same spider which I had received before, and also a small por- 

 tion of web wound round a piece of wood. In his letter, Mr. 

 Morison said, " Mr. Stainton was so kind as to forward your 

 letter to me for perusal ; and I see that you doubt that these 

 enormous webs are the production of these little creatures. If 

 they are fungi, how can the following facts be accounted for ? — 

 1 . On passing, last night, through the portion of our underground 

 workings in which these webs abound, I observed that the 

 gaps I had made in the webs on my last visit to that quarter 

 were being spun over again; and on one of them I counted 

 twenty-three or twenty-four little spiders busily engaged in 

 mending the rent. 2. In these webs, on closer inspection through 

 a small pocket magnifier, I discovered a few wings, &c, of a 

 small Midge (at least I imagine them to be so), surrounded by 

 several coats of web." Mr. Morison added that the webs 

 clung with great tenacity to the face and hands of any one pass- 

 ing through them ; and also that they could be wound round a 

 piece of wood, which he did not think the filamentous tissue of 

 a fungus could be. 



On examining the small specimen of tissue sent to me, I at 

 once saw that it was genuine spiders' web, which had become 

 blackened with coal-dust ; and on looking at it through a micro- 

 scope, I found adhering to it numerous scales from the wings of 

 moths (apparently belonging to tl^e family of the Tineida), and 

 also fragments of the legs and bodies of the same insects. The 



