OK NEW AND RARE BRITISH ARACHNIDA. 1 65 



Family DYSDERID^E. 



Sub-fam. OONOPIN^. 



Ischnothyreus velox. Pi. A, Figs, i — 6. 



Ischnothvrcus velox, Jackson, Trans. Nat. Hist. 

 Society of Northumberland, Durham, and New- 

 castle-on-Tyne, n.s., Vol. III., Part I., p. 5,. PI. iv., 



fig- 9-13- 

 Adults of both sexes were found by Dr. A. R. Jackson in 

 warm greenhouses in the Nursery Gardens at Chester, in 

 November, 1907; others had been met with shortly before 

 in a plant hot-house at Alnwick, Northumberland, by Mr. 

 Bagnall ; it has also been recently found in a similar 

 situation in the Kew Gardens, and sent to me thence 

 by ^Ir. H. Donisthorpe. M. Simon, who has examined 

 some of the examples, has decided them to be of an 

 undescribed species, allied to Ischnothyreus aculeaius, Sim. 

 (from the Philippine Islands). There can be but little 

 doubt that the English examples of this and of the follow- 

 ing species have been imported originally with plants or 

 packing materials from exotic regions ; but, as I understand, 

 there is no clue as to whence either of the species may have 

 come. A Ceylon species, /. lytuphaseus, Sim., is known to 

 to have come to the green-houses of the Natural History 

 IMuscum, Paris, and in all probability were imported with 

 plants from Ceylon. (See Bull, du ^Museum d' Histoire 

 Naturelle, 1896, No. i.) The importation of Arachnids from 

 abroad in packages of plants, fruit, or packing materials, 

 appears to be of increasing frequency ; especially in con- 

 signments of bananas, which afford just the kind of 

 protection for soft-bodied creatures (like most spiders), 

 required to bring them without injury. Entomologists 

 should therefore be on the alert at markets, or in ware- 

 houses, to await the unpacking of such consignments, and 

 secure the immigrants, noting as accurately as possible the 

 country whence they come. 



