ee ee ee eee ee an pe 
Spiders and their Webs in Coal-pits. 23 
On the 7th of February last I received a small spider from 
Mr. Stainton, the learned editor of the ‘Entomologists’ Annual,’ 
accompanied by a note stating that it had been sent to him to 
be named, by a correspondent who gave the following account 
of it :—“ It is the insect which spins those enormous and com- 
pact sheets of web in all our northern collieries; and I feel 
interested in it, for I believe that some eminent naturalists have 
contended that these webs were not the production of a spider, 
but fungi.” The spider was a minute species of Neériene, not 
quite the eighth of an inch in length, which had become dry 
and shrivelled, so that it was impossible to determine its specific 
name. I wrote word to that effect to Mr. Stainton, and also 
said that it seemed highly improbable that such a small spider 
could construct large masses of web, even if the structures in 
question were really the production of spiders at all, which I 
doubted, but which question, I added, might easily be settled 
by examining some of them with the microscope. 
On the 16th of February I received another communication 
on this subject, from Mr. David P. Morison, of Pelton Colliery, 
Chester-le-Street, Durham (the gentleman who had written to 
Mr. Stainton). He enclosed in a letter a living specimen of the 
same spider which I had received before, and also a small por- 
tion of web wound round a piece of wood. In his letter, Mr. 
Morison said, “Mr. Stainton was so kind as to forward your 
letter to me for perusal; and I see that you doubt that these 
enormous webs are the production of these little creatures. If 
they are fungi, how can the following facts be accounted for ?— 
1. On passing, last night, through the portion of our underground 
workings in which these webs abound, I observed that the 
gaps I had made in the webs on my last visit to that quarter 
were beg spun over again; and on one of them I counted 
twenty-three or twenty-four little spiders busily engaged in 
mending the rent. 2. In these webs, on closer inspection through 
a small pocket magnifier, I discovered a few wings, &c., of a 
small Midge (at least I imagine them to be so), surrounded by 
several coats of web.” Mr. Morison added that the webs 
clung with great tenacity to the face and hands of any one pass- 
ing through them ; and also that they could be wound round a 
piece of wood, which he did not think the filamentous tissue of 
a fungus could be. 
On examining the small specimen of tissue sent to me, I at 
once saw that it was genuine spiders’ web, which had become 
blackened with coal-dust ; and on looking at it through a micro- 
scope, I found adhering to it numerous scales from the wings of 
moths (apparently belonging to the family of the Tineide), and 
also fragments of the legs and bodies of the same insects. The 
