Egg- Cases of Spiders. 



519 



11. {Fig. 59./.) Web loose, like that of the silk worm, 

 bright yellow ; deposited in crumpled leaves. Its longest 

 natural diameter is 1-fVin. This is the simplest form I 

 know, and resembles nearly some loose spun folliculi of 

 pupae : but, however slight may be the workmanship of simi- 

 lar thecae, they always in the same species assume the same 

 given form, and are constructed in the same places. — [Lans- 

 down Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 1830.] 



[In II. 296., is a view, which we give here {fig. 60.), thirty 

 times larger than that of a piece of flint one tenth of an inch 



60 



®®3®@ <0@®. 



in length, bearing certain objects, on which we quote the fol- 

 lowing information from II. 296. : — Mr. S. Woodward, Nor- 

 wich, walking, about Midsummer, 1828, on the Precinct 

 Meadows, was " struck with the appearance of the flints and 

 other hard substances being partially covered with a white 

 powder." He " found this powder fixed, and, on further 

 examination with a lens, that they must be either minute 

 plants of the order Cryptogamia, or the nidi of insects." He 

 " also found them on the high ground on the opposite side of 

 the river." He has stated, under date of April 3. 1829, that 

 " the objects appear to be in the same state as when I first 



brought them home The disks of the objects are 



finely radiated, and two of them {a, b) are globular. An ex- 

 planation will oblige." Sequent to Mr. Woodward's com- 

 munication, in II. 296., is there given this remark from Mr. 

 J. D. C. Sowerby: — "I have ever considered these to be the 

 eggs of a red ^4'carus, which always accompanies them, as far 

 as I have observed." On these same objects we have now 

 another opinion to register.] 



" I have no doubt that these are the egg-cases of spiders, 

 not ^'cari, and resembling the variety noticed by me, jig. 58. c, 

 The two marked a, b {Jig. 60.] have not been ruptured by 

 the young ; the others, if I judge rightly, have lost the superior 

 protecting lid." — [Lansdown Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 

 1830.] 



s s 2 



