220 RED SPIDER. 



" The most common, the best known, and the most fre- 

 quently described of all the Tetranychi. To the general 

 characters of all these Acarina it unites the following special 

 characteristics : — Rostrum conical, obtuse ; palpi very strong, 

 and very well armed, fine hairs, acicular, long, and strong ; 

 ligules well toothed. The feet armed with strong and 

 recurved claws. The body ovoid, of a greenish brown, 

 covered with long and numerous hairs, all of these setiform. 

 Around the median stigmata four long thick cylindrical hairs, 

 twice recurved, two of them directed forward and two back- 

 wards. Feet and rostrum pale yellow. The body convex 

 above and in front. The male small, elongated, pale yellow, 

 transparent, the feet long and strong, much stronger in pro- 

 portion than those of the female. 



*' It is the male which, taken to be of a peculiar genus and 

 species, was described under the name of Leptiis cnitnmnalis. 

 Duges has figured it under this name in his AracJmida of the 

 large edition of the 'Regne Animal.' 



" The egg is globular, pale yellow, and gives birth to a 

 larva of which the development is very rapid. The web pro- 

 duced by these creatures is very close. They work at it with 

 great activit^^, and have soon covered large surfaces. They 

 attack all kinds of plant-growths, and appear to delight in 

 the Lime, in the localities where it exists. I have very often 

 found them on plants with thin and flexible leaves, especially 

 Kidney Beans and Campanulas. 



** Tetranychus telarius is the species of which the synonymy 

 appears the most easy to establish, or at least the least 

 doubtful ; therefore we need not be surprised that Claparede 

 has not in his work insisted on the specific characters. 

 ' There is no risk of difficulty,' he observes, ' in fixation of 

 this species.' It is the best accentuated type of all the 

 spinning Tetranychi. 



" It appears in the spring, develops rapidly during summer, 

 and disappears a little before autumn. It is the species 

 which is the longest lived. Length of the body of the female, 

 one millimetre and three-tenths of a millimetre; length of the 

 body of the male, seven- to eight-tenths of a millimetre." 



The attention of the reader is particularly directed to the 

 circumstance of the length of the male of the species described 

 above being much less than that of the female, and the 

 apparent differences being such that the male has been de- 

 scribed and figured by Duges as a distinct species under the 

 name of Leptus autumnalis. 



The following technical description of T. telarius, Linn., 

 by Berlese, is given in the original Latin of the writer, as 



