OF WASHINGTON. 187 



lection, with so much other precious scientific material, had 

 unfortunately to be left behind on the retreat of this ill-fated 

 party. 



The Arachnida of the polar region have attracted the atten 

 tion of the earlier European scientific explorers, for we find as 

 early as 1772 species of spiders recorded from Iceland and a few 

 years later from Greenland. We possess at the present time 

 the description of 175 species of arctic and sub-arctic Aranese 

 from the Eastern Hemisphere. 



The Arachnida of the American arctic continent and its 

 islands are comparatively little known, as only three species 

 from the polar and ten from the sub-arctic or the extreme 

 nothern boreal zone* had been described before Count Keyser- 

 ling published twenty-three species of the families Theridiidse, 

 Dictynidse and Thomisdae from the arctic regions of North 

 America, which material I had sent him from my collection. 

 My collection contains, besides these twenty-three species, 

 eighty-five additional ones, the descriptions and illustrations of 

 which I hope to be able soon to lay before this Society. 



I gladly avail myself here of the opportunity to acknowledge 

 my most sincere thanks to the following gentlemen, through 

 whose kindness I came into possession of such a large and valu 

 able collection from the distant polar regions of our Western 

 Hemisphere : Mr. L,ucien Turner, who presented me with his 

 rich spider collection, which he had prepared during the four 

 years of his stay at Ft. Simo, Ungava Bay, North Eastern Lab 

 rador (near 58 N. L.)> tne same gentleman presented me also 

 with some species from Unalaska ; Dr. T. H. Bean, from whom 

 I obtained several species from Wrangle, St. George and Schu- 

 magln Islands and Plover Bay ; Dr. Stejenegar, to whose gen 

 erous kindness I owe a number of species from Commander 

 Island on the coast of Kamschatka ; Dr. Ulysses Browne, of 

 Scotland, who presented me with a great part of his collection of 

 Arachnids, not only from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, 

 but also from the coast of Washington, Oregon, California and 

 Central America ; Mr. Murdoch, through whom I obtained a 

 specimen from Point Barrow. 



Prof. Simon has published in Bull. d. 1. Soc. Zool. d. France, 

 1887, a list of the principal works on the Arachnida of the 

 arctic region, which I quote in the following. The localities 

 from which the spiders have been observed are as follows : 



* The ten species which Prof. Thorell described were collected by Prof. 

 Packard in the southern part of Labrador, a region considerably south of 

 the arctic belt. Many of the spiders which Dr. Koch described from 

 Siberia come from a region not precisely arctic, but belonging rather 

 more to the boreal zone. 



