6tf NEW AND RARE BRITISH SPIDERS. 



WALCKEXAERASUBITANEA, (7<Jr.(Spid. Dors., p. p 144 and 445.) 



This minute spider has occurred again twice since my last 

 notice of it, each time in a fuel house, in May and October, 

 1882. 



GENUS : LTNYPHIA, La.tr . 

 LIJTYPIIIA PRUDEXS, Catribr. (Spid. Dors., p. 45G). 



An adult male of this species (the second example only as 

 yet met with in this district.) was found among moss in a wood 

 at liloxworth, in the autumn of 1882. 



LINYPIIIA ERRANS, BL (Cambr., Spid. Dors., p. 204). 

 ollonga, (Cambr., p. 204). 

 ,, incerta, (Cambr., p. 205). 



Tt seems difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the 

 three spiders above name I aro varieties of the first noted (L. 

 errans, BL). Mr. F. M. Campbell has found at Hoddesdon, in 

 Hertfordshire, numerous v examples, both males and females, 

 in which the distinctive characters of the two latter species are 

 so interchanged with those of L. errans that it is impossible to 

 assign the individual in question with certainty to either of the 

 three species. It is curious that as in regard to the species just 

 now spoken of (Ncriene atra, 151), so here again the varying 

 characters are not simply those accounted in most natural groups 

 to be of specific value (such as colours and markings, in which 

 much variability is often found and considered to 

 be quite consistent with specific identity), but 

 structural variations, such as in many groups would 

 rank as of generic value. Here, however, in the case of 

 Linyphia errans and the other two species mentioned, the varia- 

 tion is found not in the palpi, nor in any thoracic armature, but in 

 the size and position (both abso^te and relative) of the eyes. It 

 appears to me that as noticed above in reference to some abnor- 



