108 NEW AND RARE BRITISH SPIDERS. 



before last ; but though suspecting them to be different from our 

 ordinary species, Ccelotes atropos (\Valck.), the absence of the male 

 prevented my forming a reliable opinion upon it. The season 

 for the males was evidently past, and Dr. Blackmore, having in the 

 month of July obtained some recently hatched young, resolved to 

 try and rear them, hoping thus to obtain in due time both sexes. 

 The young spiders fed fairly, and made tolerable progress; but 

 winter coming on both feeding and growth stopped, and I heard no 

 more of them until the following May, when Dr. Blackmore, 

 having gone to Alderbury at my suggestion, in hopes of finding both 

 sexes in the adult state, wrote to me that he feared he was again 

 too late for the males, as he found females already adult and some 

 of them with egg-cocoons, while some that he left there the previous 

 summer just hatched were still not half grown; and as for those Avhich 

 he had been endeavouring to rear they had made but little progress 

 and were no more advanced than the others, whence he concluded 

 this spider required at least two years to become full grown. Ten 

 days later, however, Dr. Blackmore wrote again to tell me that his 

 brood had made a sudden start, and were now rapidly approaching 

 maturity. There was nothing to account for this sudden groAvth, 

 neither change nor extra abundance of food. Their progress 

 received no check after this, and in a very short time the final 

 moult took place, and three fine adult males, besides several 

 females, rewarded Dr. Blackmore's pains. From these I have been 

 able to identify it with Codotes pabulator (Sim), found not un- 

 f requently in the Alpine regions of France, but not before recorded 

 in Britain. The long-continued stagnation of growth noticed above 

 and the subsequent start and rapid progress to maturity is interest- 

 ing ; but it is known to occur in respect to other spiders also, as well 

 (I believe) as in animals of widely different groups. I am not 

 aware that any account can be given of this, further than that it is 

 an economic fact in the creature's life-history, though of course 

 during winter we should not in any case expect very rapid growth. 

 One of the males bred by Dr. Blackmore lived until last month, 

 when it died from accidental neglect, being then nearly two years old. 



