354 Mr. R. H. Meade on the British Species 0/ Phalangiidse. 



woods, both in winter and early spring ; and on several occasions 

 I have found adult specimens of Megabunus insignis myself in 

 March and April, and Nemastoma bimaculatum all through the 

 winter in a torpid state. 



In returning my thanks to those friends who had assisted me 

 in preparing materials for my monograph, I omitted the name 

 of the Eev. Hamlet Clark ; and I now embrace the opportunity 

 of supplying the omission. I am the more anxious to do this, 

 as I found, after the publication of my memoir, that he had been 

 so kind as to put up a large collection of specimens of British 

 Harvest-men (the result of two years' collecting), together with 

 a number of MS. notes upon them, and to transmit the whole 

 to me through the post-office, by which they must have been 

 lost, as they never reached me. Mr. Clark had promised to 

 send them some time before I finished my paper ; and as they 

 did not arrive, I thought he had forgotten or neglected to do so ; 

 and I was exceedingly annoyed to hear, a short time after the 

 appearance of my monograph, that they had been sent off and 

 lost. From the well-known talents of the Rev. Hamlet Clark 

 as an entomologist, it is probable that, had I received the parcel, 

 this department of Arachnology would have been enriched by 

 some additional species, as well as by a more extended knowledge 

 of the habits of the family. 



Genus Phalangium, Linn. 

 Phalangium cornutum. 



In the male of this species the length of the homed processes 

 of the falces is subject to great variation. I mentioned before, 

 that they are always short in young specimens; but I have 

 since found that adult individuals are often met with in which 

 the horns are very short, and sometimes almost deficient. The 

 size of these Harvest-men is generally small ; and the palpi seem 

 to bear a proportionate length to that of the horns of the falces. 

 In the month of August 1859, I found numerous adult short- 

 horned males together with fenjales of this species, near Bicester, 

 in Oxfordshire, in a dry stony place, which were smaller than 

 usual in all their proportions, and very ferruginous in colour. 

 At first I regarded them as a new species ; but on finding that 

 they agreed with ordinary specimens in all points of structure, 

 except in the length of the falces and palpi of the males, I came 

 to the conclusion that they were only stunted varieties, perhaps 

 produced in some measure by the extraordinary dryness of the 

 season. 1 have since received similar specimens from the Rev. 

 O. Pickard-Cambridge, captured in the south of England. 



