in THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



Its northern limits are unknown. Ihe other species, Linyphia 

 fiearctica, lives in the forests of the New England mountains from 

 2, £00 feet up to 4,500 feet, or as far as trees grow. At Montfort, 

 in the hills north of Montreal, at Dixville Notch and on Mt. 

 Kinea, Me., it comes down to 1,500 feet. At Lake St. John and 

 in Northern Maine it lives at the general level of the country, below 



500 feet, and on the coast of Labrador and at Eastport, Me., at 

 the sea level. Its range westward has not been traced, but it 

 occurs at Laggan in the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 5,000 

 feet. 



As the maps show, there are gaps to be filled in the distribution 

 of even these common species. The Theridion probably follows 

 westward along the Ottawa River and Lake Huron to Lake Superior, 

 The Linyphia probably crosses Ontario farther north, perhaps 

 alcng Hudson Bay. These two species outline, as well as anything 

 does, the so-called Canadian life zone. South of it another set of 

 spiders occupy the country, and some of the species common in the 

 meadows of Boston or Toronto are also common around the ponds 

 of Edmonton. On the west coast another fauna extends north to 

 Alaska and its species mix through the mountains with the other 

 groups, some as far east as Medicine Hat. On the east coast, 

 arctic species extend southward along the shores of Labrador and 

 Newfoundland as far as Maine. I have tried to give here the out- 

 lines that the study of Canadian spiders has to fill in, and it is 

 gratifying to see how much is being done in this interesting field. 

 At the Park Museum in Banff there is already a local collection of 

 over fifty species, which is increased every season by the curator, 

 Mr. Sanson. At the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is a larger 

 local collection and an interesting set of spiders from various 

 points across the country from Nipigon to Vancouver Island, 

 collected chiefly by Mr. T. B. Kurata. At Ottawa are the 

 spiders collected before 1890 by J. B. Tyrell and other early ex- 

 plorers of the Geological Survey, and more recent collections made 

 in the way of their other work by entomologists in all parts of the 

 Dominion. Small collections of Canadian spiders from several 

 correspondents are coming in this winter, and I am beginning to 

 think about another summer excursion in Canada. 



