11 



memoir ' upon the gigantic Arunea acicularia, in which lie has dis- 

 proved the statements of" Madame Merian as to its capturing small 

 birds in its webs, being in fact a terrestrial species living in holes under 

 stones, &.C. We are indebted to Latreille for a valuable memoir'^ 

 upon the genus Mygale, to which this insect belongs. 



Mr. Spence has also published some observations upon the construc- 

 tion of the geometrical nests of spiders, in the Mag. of Nat. Hist.^. 



The nature and properties of the immensely developed palpi of the 

 male spiders is a question still left in obscurity, being one of the 

 points of inquiry proposed amongst the zoological questions by the 

 British Association*. 



Amongst the smaller and aberrant Arac/mida, the memoir of 

 M. Duges upon the Acari '-> stands foremost, this author having 

 not only detailed and illustrated the structure of the entire group, 

 but also added considerably to our knowledge of the habits of the 

 various genera, and having, for the first time, described the sin- 

 gular transformations which many of the species undergo, and which 

 in the Water Mites is of so extraordinary a nature as to have de- 

 ceived Latreille and Audouin. It is in justice to be observed, that 

 Mr. Curtis had some time previously published a short notice relative 

 to the latter subject in the Mag. of Nat. Hist.*^. M. Theis has also 

 published a monograph upon the Hi/drachnce., as well as one upon 

 the genera Chelifcr and ObisiumJ. 



The Rev. F. W. Hope has also read before the Linnsean Society 

 the description of a most singular animal belonging to the family of 

 the Harvest Spiders, Phalangia, — remarkable for the extraordinary 

 elongation of its legs, — and which he has named Dolichoscelis Ha- 

 worthii ; and Dr. Perty has given a synopsis of the same family in 

 his account of the insects of Brazil collected by Spix and Martins, 

 in which numerous new genera are introduced. 



Another subject connected with the Acari, which appears to have 

 excited a great degree of attention in Paris, namely, the real nature 

 of the itch insect, Acainis Scabiei, has very recently been elucidated 

 by the publicatiion of its description by the celebrated microscopic 

 observer M. Raspail*. 



The recent publications and memoirs upon the other Apterous In- 



' In the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, Vol. I. 



* Vues Generales surles Araneides k qiiatre Pneumobranchies, &c. ; published in 

 the Nouv. Ann. d'Hist. Nat., Tom. I. p. fil. 



3 No. 30, for November 1832. 



* The curious question also as to the degree of value to be given to the characters 

 derived from the nature of the respiratory apparatus in the Arachnida (respecting 

 which see Mr. Jenyns's Report, p. 201,) has received fresh interest from a memoir 

 by M. Duges, recently read before the French Institute, in which the genera Dys- 

 dera and Segestria are stated to have four spiracles, two of which are connected with 

 pulmonary and two with trachean organs. — See Guerin's Bull. Zool., No. 2. 



* Recherches sur I'ordre des Acariens, Ann. des Sc. Nat., January 1834. 

 « Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. VII. pi. 161. 



7 Ann. des Sciences Naturelles, September 1832. 



* Memoire Comparatif sur I'Histoire Naturelle de I'lnsecte de la Gale. Par F. V. 

 Raspail. Paris, 8vo. pp. 31. With plates. 



