Illustrations in British Zoology, 13 



generic distinctions ; at any rate, directing attention to these 

 points may, perhaps, lead to some curious particulars in allied 

 genera. I am, Sir, yours, &c. 



London^ September 14. 1833. CM. 



In the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, vol. iii. (completed 

 with the number for December, 1833), p. 104. 187. 344. 436., several newly 

 discovered British and three exotic species of spider are described in great 

 detail, and some new genera constituted of them, by J. Blackwall, Esq. 

 F.L.S. The names applied to them are these (by B. we mean Blackwall) : 

 --- Tribe Inequitelae Lat. Mandunculus B. amblguus B. ; Neriene B. mar- 

 ginata B., riibens B.y corniita B., bicolor B.y and rufipes B. — Tribe Or- 

 bitelae Lat. Linjphia Lat. minuta B., luteola J?., marginata B.y annulipes 

 B., and fuliginea^.; Nephila ieacA Turnen B., exotic. — Tribe Tubitelse 

 Lat. Savigni« B. frontata B. ; Walckenaera B. acuminata J?., cristata B., 

 and cuspidata B. ; Textrix B. agilis B. ; Agelena Walckenaer brunnea B.; 

 Clubiona Lat. saxatilis B.y and parvula B. j Drassus Walckenaer nitens 

 B.y and sylvestris B. — Tribe Territelae Lat. ikfygale Walckenaer elegans 

 B.f exotic ; Cteniza Lat. spinosa B., exotic. — J. JD. 



Art. IV. Illustrations in British Zoology. By George John- 

 ston M. D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edin- 

 burgh. 



It is known to naturalists in general that Peyssonel, a phy- 

 sician of Marseilles, who had travelled into Barbary and the 

 Levant, was the first who distinctly published the animal 

 nature of coral and of other lithophytes ; an opinion which, 

 however true, gained no proselytes, until Abraham Trembley, 

 a native of Geneva, had discovered the ii/ydra and its wonder- 

 ful properties ; and Bernard de Jussieu and Ellis had demon- 

 strated the existence of similar polypes in a great number of 

 the lithophytes and zoophytes of the European shores. Since 

 that time it has been believed that the little tenants of every 

 zoophytical production, and all the little creatures which are 

 found embedded in any common gelatinous mass, are po- 

 lypes identical in structure, or nearly so, wdth the iiydra ; 

 and, in this belief, many fleshy and fibrous productions which 

 were known or imagined to be a common matrix of a numerous 

 colony, were unhesitatingly arranged together in the same 

 class, under the denomination of ^Icyonium. The structure 

 of a few of these was ascertained, and seemed to confirm the 

 propriety of this classification ; for there could be no doubt 

 that the inhabitants of the ^Icyonium digitatum of Linnaeus 

 were truly polypes ; and this was the best known and most 

 easily examined species. Nor were the observations of 



