CAMBRIDGE .—ÓO the Spiders of New Zealand. 195 
among grass or other herbage, near its roots, numerous species—seldom to be seen 
and rarely procured elsewhere—live and secrete themselves ; also, among 
mosses, lichens, and dead leaves may be found many minute spiders not to be 
obtained except by a careful search among such materials. Water-weeds and 
débris, collected in marshes or on the borders of ponds and streams, ave also 
most favourable for the hiding places and habitations of many peculiar species 
seldom found in other localities. I have not mentioned such obvious habitats 
as trees, bushes, blossoms of flowers, the general surface of the earth, rocks 
and stones in every locality, houses and old buildings of all kinds, outer walls 
of houses, palings, tree trunks, ete, etc. ; in all these spiders force themselves 
upon the collector's attention, but, in the others before-mentioned, they must 
be searched for carefully, and often painfully. Some spiders again (though of 
small size) are quasi-parasitic, living on the outskirts of the webs of larger 
species. Those at present known consist of a single genus, or perhaps two 
genera, of which several species have been described, and others are known. 
They are of the genera before-mentioned—Argyrodes and Ariamnes. These 
inhabit the webs of large Epeirids, and appear to live on the smaller insects 
caught in them ; probably also spinning their own irregular snares among the 
larger lines of the geometric web. The webs, therefore, of large Epeirids, 
especially of those which live in colonies like the Zpeira opuntie of Europe 
and Asia, should be searched very narrowly for these curious and beautiful 
little spiders, otherwise they, as well as their long-stemmed pear-shaped nests, 
will probably be overlooked, or perhaps considered to be only the young of the 
Epeirides in whose web their domicile has been taken up. All the known 
species of this little parasitic group are more or less metallic in their colours 
and markings; their legs are long and very slender ; the cephalo-thorax of the 
male is generally very remarkable in its conformation, and the abdomen also 
frequently takes some eccentric shape. 
The search for spiders has this advantage over that for insects in = 
spiders cannot escape by taking wing, though I have more than once lost a 
valuable but minute specimen which has floated away from me successfully on 
its silken line ; but for the very reason that spiders are more sedentary, or 
often moving only on the surface of the earth, it requires perhaps greater 
diligence and attention to become a very successful collector of spiders than of 
insects. One rule the collector should observe as much as possible, and that 
is, not to capture spiders with the fingers if it can be avoided, for some spiders 
in tropical countries will inflict severe injury by their poisonous fangs, and 
others, especially minute ones, will receive injury to the delicate spines, as well 
as to the hairs and pubescence, upon which much of their colour and specific 
character often depends. At times, of course, where it is a question between 
losing and obtaining a specimen, the fingers must be used ; and practice makes 
