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THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB. 
At the recent meeting of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, the following 
interesting paper was read by THEOPHILUS Lanz, Esq., of Hereford :— 
BRITISH SPIDERS. 
One summer's afternoon, while hunting for insects in my garden, I saw one 
of the beautiful metallic coloured flies caught in a spider’s web on a rose tree, and 
the spider was running out to catch it. Having at the time a powerful condensing 
lens with me, I focussed the rays of the sun close to the fly, so as to prevent the 
approach of the spider to her prey, and was curious to see what she would do. 
Directly the spider felt the heat she ran back again, then in a few moments made 
a second attempt, when using the condensor as before, the same result followed. 
My friend was not to be daunted, for after waiting a few seconds she again rushed 
out to the struggling fly, but still finding the focus unpleasantly hot, she hurried 
back from it. I still watched the spider closely, and was surprised at the ingenuity 
of the next move she made. She stood at the entrance of her nest, for a moment 
as if to consider the matter, and then ran down to a lower branch of the rose tree, 
and along the outer line of the web, so as to be able to get at the fly in the opposite 
direction. Being struck with admiration at the intelligence thus shown, I took 
away the condensor and allowed her to secure her prize, which she did, and then 
most intelligently mindful of her former difficulty, she carried it back by the same 
indirect way she got to it. I afterwards felt a sort of friendship for this spider, 
and supplied her with a fly or two nearly every day for some little time, but one 
morning going as usual to feed her, the web had been destroyed, and the spider 
was gone. 
From this time the spider tribe has proved to me a never-ending source of 
interest and pleasure ; and I have been induced to draw up this paper in the hope 
that other members of the Woolhope Club may be led to seek the same gratifica- 
tion in the study of their character and habits. British spiders are very numerous. 
They are divided into two tribes. The first, or eight-eyed tribe, consists of ten 
families, and the second, or six-eyed tribe; consists of two families, and of these 
several families of true spiders there are many hundred genera known. Spiders 
are also popularly divided into the ‘‘ sedentaries,” or those who spin a net and wait 
for their victims to get entangled-—the house and garden spiders for example—and 
the ‘‘ vagrants” and ‘‘ hunters,” who use no net, but lie in ambuscade, or roam 
about and spring upon their prey at some unexpected moment and thus resemble 
more closely the larger beasts of prey. Besides, there are other members of the 
arachnida family—the harvestman and the little red spider for example—which, 
though closely allied to them, are not spiders proper. : 
