ON A SPIDER INHABITING COAL MINES, 49 
VII.—On a Spider (Neriene errans) inhabiting Coal Mines. By 
Davip P. Morison, Pelton Colliery. 
Durie the commencement of last year my attention was direct- 
ed to the immense sheets of web-like material which abound in 
the ‘“waste’’ or old workings of the Pelton Colliery. These webs 
attain a most gigantic size, some of them having been seen 
upwards of twenty or thirty feet in length, by four or five in 
height, and some even more, and they all, in consequence of the 
coal dust with which they are densely covered, present an opaque 
blackish appearance. 
I was informed that they had generally been considered to be 
the mycelium of a fungus, but not feeling at all convinced of this, 
I determined to subject them to a more rigid examination than 
they had yet received. For this purpose, on Feburary, 1869, I 
descended the pit with two of the wastemen, from whom I learned 
en route, and soon afterwards ascertained from actual experience, 
that, however interesting a subject they might be to the natura- 
list, they formed most disagreeable impediments to the progress of 
any one passing through them; these men also assured me 
that they were, in their opinion, not fung?, but most certainly spiders 
webs, and that furthermore they had often seen minute spiders 
engaged in spinning them. 
This fact was completely verified on our arriving at the locale 
where the webs were the most plentiful, as I at once detected on 
them scores of small spiders, some busily occupied in the fabri- 
cation of the webs, and others rapidly dropping to the ground on 
our approach. By subsequent and more extended observations, I 
remarked that these insects are eminently gregarious, assembling 
in large numbers to construct fresh webs, or to repair any rents 
or damages in the older ones; and also that their continual abode 
in the total darkness of the coal-pit, does not seem to have de- 
prived them of their susceptibility to light, as on the approach, of 
the lamps, they may be seen scampering about in great agitation, 
and dropping from their webs to the floor of the galleries. 
