CHAPTER XV 
ARACHNIDA EMBOLOBRANCHIATA (CONTINUED )— 
ARANEAE (CONTINUED )—CLASSIFICATION 
THE systematic study of Spiders has hitherto presented very great, 
difficulties. There is an extensive lterature on the subject, but 
the more important works are costly, not commonly to be found 
in libraries, and written in diverse languages. Moreover, the 
nomenclature is only now emerging from a condition of chaos. 
Able and diligent Arachnologists have done admirable work in 
studying and describing the Spider fauna of their various countries, 
and occasional tentative suggestions have been put forth with a 
view to reducing to some sort of order the vast mass of hetero- 
geneous material thus collected. Most schemes of classification, 
based chiefly upon a knowledge of European forms, have proved 
quite inadequate for the reception of the vast numbers of strange 
exotic species with which recent years have made us acquainted. 
The number of described species is very large, and is rapidly in- 
creasing ; but though we are very far indeed from anything lke 
an exhaustive knowledge of existing forms, it may now be said 
that almost every considerable area of the earth’s surface is at 
least partially represented in the cabinets of collectors, and it is 
possible to take a comprehensive view of the whole Spider fauna, 
and to suggest a scheme of classification very much less lkely 
than heretofore to be fundamentally deranged by new discoveries. 
The first to apply the Linnaean nomenclature to Spiders was 
Clerck, in his Araneae Suecicae (1757), which gives an account 
of seventy spiders, some of which are varieties of the same 
species. A few new species were added by Linnaeus, De Geer, 
Scopoli, Fabricius, etc., but the next work of real importance was 
that of Westring (1861), who, under the same title, described 
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