195 

 THE SPIDERS OF YORKSHIRE. 



WM. FALCONER, 

 Slaithwaite, Huddersfield. 



The material for the following catalogue of spiders has been 

 drawn from various sources. The first, of whom there is any 

 record, to make observations on Yorkshire spiders was Dr. 

 Martin Lister* (1638-1712), but this was in pre-Linnean days 

 before the introduction of binomial nomenclature. Blackwall's 

 ' Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland ' f contains references to 

 29 Yorkshire species, 17 of which are localised, and stated with 

 two exceptions to have been collected by Dr. R. H. Meade. 

 The rest have neither definite locality nor collector's name 

 assigned to them, but presumably were also taken by him 

 around Bradford, in which city he practised ; indeed the Rev. 

 O. Pickard Cambridge has recently in the Victoria County 

 History (1907) attributed to him and so localised 10 of them. 

 With the exception of Diaea dorsata and Porrhomma errans Bl., 

 all these old records have after a considerable interval been 

 confirmed. With respect to two others, the types and other 

 examples of which have been lost and their identity thereby 

 obscured, but which Mr. Cambridge believes to be 'good species,' J 

 there can be no doubt, I think, that Neriene montana Bl. = 

 Centromerus prudens Camb., the former name being of prior 

 publication, and that Linyphia meadii 'Bl. = Oreonetides 

 ahnormis Bl., the latter name having the priority. In the 

 next comprehensive English work, Cambridge's ' Spiders of 

 Dorset ' (1879- 1882), which includes all the then known British 

 species, there are very few specific Yorkshire records (none of 

 them new), for Dr. Meade apparently neither made nor pub- 

 lished a list of his captures, § which are stated to have included 

 ' all the commoner and generally distributed species,' % 24 

 therein named having his initials attached. The next to 

 resume the work of investigation was the present writer in 

 1894, whose efforts, at first merely local, extended in course of 

 time in a greater or less degree to AX the divisions of the county. 

 Although no doubt other factors are also largely involved, 

 the geological structure of any area has much to do with the 

 number, kinds and distribution of its spiders. Each formation 

 has its own lithological peculia'-ities and particular attributes 

 of elevation, aspect, moisture, temperature and soil, which 

 determine the surface features and the amount and character 

 of the covering vegetation which jointly have much influence 



* De Araneis. 

 f Ray Society, 1861-4. 



\ Victoria County History of Yorkshire, p. 286 (1907). 

 § Some of Dr. Meade's spiders are in the Leeds University Biological 

 Museum, but unlocalised, and probably not all collected in Yorkshire. 



1918 June 1. 



