470 On the Systematic Arrangement of British Spiders/^ '^ 



damp situations, among which it constructs a dome-shaped cell 

 of white silk of a compact texture. In this cell, after distributing 

 upon its exterior surface the withered leaves of plants and closing 

 its entrance with a tissue of silk, the spider passes the winter 

 in a state of torpidity. During the summer and autumn the 

 female incloses in cells of a similar construction several subglobose 

 cocoons of yellow silk of a loose texture, measuring, on an average, 

 ^^ths of an inch in diameter, each of which contains about 220 

 spherical eggs of a pale brown colour, agglutinated together in a 

 lenticular mass. On the 18th of July, 1846, both sexes of a 

 small insect belonging to the family Ichneumonidce, the female 

 of which is apterous, came out of a cocoon of this spider, and in 

 1842 I obtained specimens of the same insect from a cocoon of 

 Epeira umbratica. 



M. Walckenaer, in referring to an interesting fact recorded 

 by Lister, has strangely misinterpreted the meaning of that 

 author ; he states that " Lister a observe des larves d^Ichneumon 

 dans les nids de cette espece ^^ {Epeira apoclisa) : " ces larves se 

 sont transformees sous ses yeux et ont pris leur vol dans Fair '' 

 (Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt. t. ii. p. 65). The source of error 

 will be immediately perceived on perusing the following passage 

 cited from the ' Tractatus de Araneis ' of the English naturalist, 

 page 40 : — " In nido autem altero divulso triplicem, ut supra 

 dictum est, foetum observavi. Inter primum vero partum sex 

 aderant parvae Chrysalides sive Thecse teretes, solidse, utraque ex- 

 tremitate retusse, sublividse, id sc. genus, e quibus Muscse tripiles, 

 a Moufeto nostro sic dictse, antiquis vero Ichneumones vespse ap- 

 pellatse, excludi solent. Ex ipsis autem Araneolis natu majori- 

 bus, qui sc. horum vermiculorum voracitatem, dum in ovo, effu- 

 gerant, quotquot a me aeri expositi, protinus fila ejaculando 

 avolavere ; non injucundo sane spectaculo ! " 



The snares spun by Epeira apoclisa vary considerably in extent ; 

 upwards of 120,000 viscid globules are distributed upon the 

 elastic spiral line in a net of large dimensions, yet, under favour- 

 able circumstances, the time required for its completion seldom 

 exceeds forty minutes. 



In the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,^ vol. xvii. 

 p. 79, I have asserted that the legs of all the males of this spe- 

 cies, whether British or foreign, which I had measured, were 

 shorter than those of the other sex ; since the publication of that 

 remark, however, I have met with several males whose legs ex- 

 ceeded in longitudinal extent those of the largest female in my 

 possession, showing that this spider varies as remarkably in its 

 proportions as it does in colour. 



