148 ON NEW AND RARE SPIDERS. 



always puzzled me as to when the males became adult. About 

 the beginning of last November, I therefore placed four imma- 

 ture males, each in a separate bottle, feeding them with flies as 

 long as they would feed ; though after the end of December the 

 spiders seldom did more than move about a little when the sun 

 shone, and catch a fly every two or three days. At intervals, up 

 to the middle of March, three of these spiders died, but at 

 the end of that month the fourth began to change its skin for 

 the last time, and to assume the adult state. This it did not, 

 however, effect perfectly, as, owing probably to the want of a 

 moister atmosphere, it failed to extricate the palpi from their 

 old covering, and finally died in that position. I knew, how- 

 ever, now the time when the male of this species became adult, 

 so on the next quiet fine spring day, April 3rd, I went out on the 

 heath resolved to find them in the mature state. This I was 

 fortunate enough to do, capturing seven adult males and one or two 

 females in the course of a hard afternoon's work. I imagine 

 that the life of the male of this spider, after it attains maturity, 

 must be very short, inasmuch as I did not again meet with it ; 

 not being, in fact, able, owing to bad weather, to search again for 

 it until several days after I had found the others, and when 

 apparently it had entirely disappeared. If its life, in a state of 

 maturity, is thus of such a short duration, it would account for 

 my not having before, during 24 years, found it at that season 

 of the year, when propitious days for field work are generally 

 few and far between. 



I am sorry not to be able to state that more residents in the 

 county have yet taken up the study and collecting of Spiders. 

 I am, however, indebted to Mr. Kemp-Welsh, of Bournemouth, 

 for one of the additions here accorded, Marpessa muscosa, Clk- 

 It would give me great pleasure to receive collections made in 

 the county for examination. I feel sure that if nine additions 

 can be made in our list during a season, in my own, now pretty 

 fairly worked district, there are many more yet unrecorded in 

 some still unworked localities, especially in swamps, and on the 

 chalk and limestone. Half-ounce and one-ounce phial-bottles of 



