2 NOTES ON BRITISH SPIDERS. 



imbuing anyone in the County of Dorset with a love of the spider 

 tribes ; and consequently, although I look with the eye of faith 

 on many a likely spot in our fair county, and know that there are 

 probably lurking there unknown and unimagined forms, yet the 

 former " finger of instinct" is wanting in myself, and the coming 

 worker is yet to come ! 



Among those who in the past year have kindly sent me spiders 

 are Mr. William Evans, of Edinburgh, to whom I am indebted 

 for several rare forms, and Mr. George Nicholson, Curator of 

 the Royal Gardens at Kew, who has collected for me innumerable 

 specimens, among them being some not only rare, but two new 

 to science. I should remark, however, that any new species 

 coming from Kew, where there is a constant importation of 

 plants from foreign lands, must be looked upon as at least likely 

 to have been originally also so imported ; still that need not 

 necessarily be the case. It is probably so in respect to one of the 

 new species mentioned, Hasarius Nicholsonii, a fine and distinct 

 salticid spider, which appears to be naturalised in one of the large 

 plant houses. It occurs there in abundance in all stages of growth, 

 forming its nests in the folded leaves of Bromeliad plants, and 

 was most likely at first introduced with some of these plants from 

 Brazil. The other new species, Melos bicolor, has nothing exotic- 

 looking about it ; it belongs to a very numerously-represented 

 group in Britain, and was found in the open grounds, and may, 

 therefore, very probably be indigenous. Another species 

 received from Kew is Dictyna viridissima, Walck. This has only 

 once before been found in the British Islands (at Boxhill in 

 Surrey). I may also here note two other rare British spiders 

 from Kew, Agroeca inopina Cambr. (hitherto only found at 

 Lulworth and Bloxworth) and Tetragnatha nigrila, Lendl. 

 Perhaps this last may be commoner than at present suspected, 

 being a very near ally of one of our most abundant spiders, 

 Tetragnatha extensa, Linn. Another conspicuous, and no doubt 

 at first imported species, Hasarius Adansonh, Aud., has occurred 

 freely in the Kew hot-houses. It has been found in numbers 

 of localities in England and Scotland, but always in hot-houses or 



