OF WASHINGTON. 149 



starting point for further workers ; it will stimulate others to 

 augment and enhance its scope. 



With a number of such local Spider lists put side by side, 

 thus covering a large area of territory, great results have been 

 achieved in European countries, not alone in regard to the 

 knowledge of the geographical distribution of the Aranese, 

 but also to the general advancement of the science of Arach- 

 nology. 



In England nearly every indigenous Spider is now known ; 

 every new addition immediately recorded the result accom 

 plished by the numerous lists of local faunas. France, Ger 

 many, Sweden and Austria owe their advanced states of the 

 knowledge of their Spider-fauna to the same sources, and even 

 Russia has a great number of local lists on the same subject. 



In this country we have only a small number of occasional 

 papers on local Spider-faunas, prepared mostly by European 

 writers from material sent to them from one locality or another. 



The first and most comprehenive work, which would have 

 served under other circumstances as an excellent starting 

 point in this direction, is Abbot' 's Georgia Spiders, a catalogue 

 of over five hundred new species, carefully illustrated, and 

 nearly all collected in the State of Georgia. Unfortunately 

 this very valuable work fell into the hands of Europeans, and 

 the species were described by Baron Walckenaer 1 in such 

 vague and insufficient manner that only a small number could, 

 up to the present time, be recognized. 



In 1869 Prof. C. G. Giebel 2 published a list of seven species 

 from Illinois, and J. Blackwall 3 a list of nine species from 

 Montreal, Canada. ThorelH described in 1875 ten species 

 from Labrador, and the same authors published a list of thirty- 

 three species which were collected by Packard in Boulder 



1 Walckenaer Histoire natur. des Ins. Apteres, I and II, 1837. 



2 C. G. Giebel Ueber einige Spinn. a. Illinois. Zeitschr. fges. Natur- 

 wiss. XXXIII, 1869. 



3 Blackwall Notice of Spiders captured by Miss Hunter in Montreal, 

 Can ; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., VIII, 1871. 



4T. Thorell Notice of some Spiders from Labrador. Proc. Bost. Soc. 

 Nat. Hist., XVII, 1875. 



5T. Thorell Araneae collected in Colorado. Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey 

 Terr., Ill, No. 2, 1877. 



