notices of new books. 501 



of hearing is principally exercised. It is certain that Spiders are 

 very sensibly affected by sound, though whether they are capable 

 of appreciating and discriminating musical sounds, as has been 

 asserted, is more doubtful. 



They have most probably a strong sense of taste, which is 

 without doubt seated in the tongue. 



With respect to the sense of pain, there seems no reason to 

 believe that Spiders are more susceptible than any others of the 

 Articulata, in all of which any sense of acute pain is probably 

 almost or altogether wanting. 



Mr. Cambridge has some interesting observations on the 

 power to utter sounds possessed by at least one British species, 

 Asagena plialerata, the only one, so far as he is aware, in which 

 this peculiarity has been noticed, although a stridulating apparatus 

 has also been found in a large Indian Spider, Mygale stridulans, 

 Wood-Mason. 



From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that ' The Spiders 

 of Dorset' is not a mere dry list of species, with technical 

 diagnoses, but contains, in addition to necessary descriptions, 

 much information that will be interesting, not only to those who 

 have made Spiders their special study, but to that larger class of 

 naturalists who, for want of a text-book like that now supplied by 

 Mr. Cambridge, are perhaps as yet imperfectly informed on the 

 subject. 



Some more Scraps about Birds. By Charles Murray Adam- 

 son. 8vo, pp. 273, with illustrations. Newcastle-on-Tyne : 

 Bell & Co. 1881. 



This volume may be regarded as a second series of the 

 Notes and Observations on Birds, which, under a somewhat 

 similar title, appeared in 1879, and were noticed in ' The 

 Zoologist' for that year (p. 391). Many of these notes are 

 interesting enough, embracing as they do the results of the 

 author's personal observation of the habits of wildfowl and waders 

 on the shores and estuaries of Northumberland during the past 

 forty years, and his remarks on the seasonal change of plumage 

 which these birds undergo are well worth perusing. But the reader 

 is placed at serious disadvantage owing to the form in which these 

 notes are presented to him. They appear, for the most part, to 



