24 Mr. R. WH. Meade on Spiders and their Webs in Coal-pits. 
spider enclosed with the web I determmed, on careful examina- 
tion, to be an adult male of Neriene errans, a small species of a 
pale brown colour, described by Mr. Blackwall *, which had 
hitherto been found only among grass, and on rails, in North 
Wales and in. the south of Lancashire. Apparently from its 
living in a subterranean abode, its colour was more dusky than 
that of the ordinary terrestrial species, which made me suspect 
at first that it might be a new, though a nearly allied, species ; 
but several more mature individuals, both male and female, 
having been sent to me, at my request, by Mr. Morison, all 
doubts as to their identity with Neriene errans was removed, 
both from my own mind and from that of my friend Mr. Black- 
wall, to whom I submitted them. 
The portion of web which I received was so small, that I 
thought it possible that masses of filamentous fungous matter 
might also exist in the mines; soe I requested the favour of a 
larger specimen for examination. Mr. Morison promptly acceded 
to my wish, and sent me a mass of similarly blackened tissue, 
which also I found to be genuine cobweb. Mr. Morison like- 
wise forwarded (through Mr. Read, of the Pelton Colliery) an- 
other portion to Mr, Hunt, of the Mining Record Office, who 
submitted it to Mr. Berkeley for his opinion, which fully coin- 
cided with my own. 
Mr. Morison says, in one of his letters to me, that when the 
webs are spun in damp places, they appear, like everything else 
there, to be dotted all over with a kind of mould; and he thinks 
that this, having been examined casually, might have led to the 
supposition that the webs themselves were fungous growths. 
The mine in which these spiders and their webs were found 
is called the Pelton Colliery. The seam of coal (part of the 
“ Hutton seam”) averages 4 feet 6 inches in thickness, and is 
320 feet below the surface of the ground; about 75 horses and 
ponies are employed in the mine; and Mr, Morison suggests 
that the insects upon which the spiders live are conveyed down 
with the fodder for the horses. He also tells me that “the 
spiders themselves are to be found in the waste, or parts of the 
pit not actually at work; and the webs are generally spun in 
galleries through which little or no air passes. The spiders 
seem to be quite gregarious, as whenever a rent has been made 
in any one of these productions, they may be counted by scores 
together (so our wastemen tell me) repairmg the damage. They 
seem to be, in spite of their dark existence, very susceptible to 
light, and the appearance of a lamp produces no small commo- 
tion amongst them.” 
It is an exceedingly interesting fact that a minute spider, 
* Linn. Trans. vol. xviii. p. 643. 
