1873.] GENERA AND SPECIES OF ARANEIDEA. 113 



the Micros of the Exotic Articulata are less worth the trouble of 

 collecting than the Macros. It arises, I suppose, chiefly from the 

 comparatively unmarketable nature of the former ; at any rate the 

 consequence is that almost every collector crams his boxes or his 

 bottles with the larger species, many of which we receive over and over 

 again, usque ad nauseam, simply because they are large or brightly 

 coloured. If one were to judge, in regard to Spiders, from the collec- 

 tionsreeeived from professional or regular collectors in tropical regions, 

 it might be thought that there were there few or none of those very 

 minute Spiders such as we find to be the staple of our temperate 

 climates. In the collection, however, received from Ceylon, through 

 the kindness of Mr. G. H. K.Thwaites, this idea is abundantly dispelled. 

 Hundreds, I may say, of the species in these collections are exceed- 

 ingly minute, and all of them of the greatest interest. Some of them, 

 such as those here described, Tetrablemma, Phoroncidia, and Slego- 

 soma, with others described in P. Z. S. Nov. 18/0, are among the 

 most remarkable forms known, while numerous others of equal interest 

 yet remain to be described. The reason why Mr. Thwaites's collec- 

 tions are thus rich in the Micro- Aranese is not (I feel sure) because 

 Ceylon is more prolific than other tropical parts, hut simply because 

 the collections were made by "non-collectors." A "collector" 

 turns over debris, or bark, or stones, or beats bushes and trees, 

 and then picks and chooses according to what he thinks is most 

 striking at the moment, or only what he believes to be different from 

 what he has secured before, or perhaps what will sell best ; and 

 often (among Spiders) he sets down most of the small specimens as 

 immature examples of larger ones ; and thus while he is securing a 

 few of the large and gaily coloured individuals, the thousand minute 

 ones escape. The " non-collector," on the contrary, especially if he 

 is a "native," secures every thing he can lay his fingers upon, re- 

 gardless of form, size, or colour, or whether he has already obtained 

 examples of the same or not. To this solely I attribute the richness 

 of the collections received from Ceylon. They were made by one or 

 two of the native workmen in the Royal Botauic Gardens during their 

 leisure hours. These men appear to have followed implicitly the in- 

 structions impressed upon them by Mr. Thwaites, and to have bottled, 

 mostly in the gardens themselves, every thing in the shape of a Spider 

 that they could find. The consequence is that there are, as one 

 might expect, numerous examples of some few common species ; but 

 at the same time there are numbers of minute rarities which we 

 should never have got had not the collectors bottled, indiscrimi- 

 nately, every thing that their search laid bare. For discovering 

 the articulated treasures of a tropical district, commend me to a 

 few active and intelligent " natives," who will very soon produce 

 the largest part of what the district holds ; while a " collector," 

 with a fancied (but often an imperfect) knowledge of species, picks 

 and chooses, and lets go a hundred novelties while he is securing a 

 few probably already well-known forms. 



All, except two, of the Spiders described in the present paper are 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1873, No. VIII. 8 



