The Ar<u'hn!t/(t. tf Cambridgeshire 



sj)i(lers with their remarkable acrobatic teats on perpendicular 



surface's, and the multitudinous \\eavers of irregular \\elis, are 

 not so generally known. Their spinning operations, whether 

 in spreading snares, constructing retreats, or weaving 

 cocoons, no doubt furnish the greatest field of interest, hut 

 apart from these there are many points in their economy 

 which are highly curious, as, for instance, the aeronautic 

 expeditions of the migrating young, and the extraordinary 

 dangers encountered by the males of some species during the 

 breeding season. 



Among the Cambridge spiders there are many notable forms, 

 and some that have not yet been found elsewhere. 



Our nearest English congener of the trap-door spiders of 

 southern Europe, Atypus piceus, is to be found on the Devil's 

 Dyke. It certainly constructs no trap-door, but it forms a 

 deep burrow, lined with silk, which is continued into a purse- 

 like structure in the herbage above the level of the ground. 

 Tegenaria domestica, the largest English spider at all events 

 as regards the span of its legs is common in cellars and out- 

 houses. The water-spider, Argyroneta aqttatica, abounds in 

 the local streams and ditches. Nearly all the English species 

 of Theridion occur in Cambridgeshire, and some of the rarer 

 Epeiridae are not uncommon. But the chief characteristic of 

 the local aranean fauna is derived from the adjoining fen-land, 

 and in Wicken Fen particularly are to be found several species 

 very rarely met with elsewhere. 



The handsome wolf-spider, Lycosa farrenitii, was long 

 thought to be peculiar to Wicken, and still its only other 

 locality is in the outskirts of Paris. One of our finest jumping- 

 spiders, Marplssa pomatla, stood for many years in the British 

 list on the strength of a single female taken in the North of 

 England, but both sexes occur with tolerable frequency among 

 the sedge of Wicken Fen. And besides these special rarities 

 there are a variety of fen forms which would prove a \vrlcoim> 

 addition to the collection of any arachnologist who had hitherto 

 worked chiefly on higher ground. 



