ON A SPIDER INHABITING COAL MINES. yl 
Mr. P. 8. Reid, of Pelton Colliery, kindly forwarded another 
piece of the web to Mr. Hunt, of the Mining Record Office, Lon- 
don, who submitted it to Mr. Berkeley, by whom it was likewise 
pronounced the production of spiders. 
It may be not uninteresting to give a few details of the coal-mine 
in which this spider was discovered, and I therefore subjoin 
them:—The seam of coal which is at present being worked, and 
in which it was found, is called the Hutton Seam, and is here, 
at Pelton Colliery, about 4 feet and a half thick, and 320 
below the surface of the ground. The temperature, especially in 
the waste, where the webs abound, stands considerably higher 
than on the surface. About 75 horses and ponies are employed 
and stabled in the pit, and it is doubtless the flies, &c., conveyed 
down in the fodder upon which the spiders subsist; of these small 
flies there seems to be an immense number, but although I have 
repeatedly sought for the Zimeina reputed to feed on the fungi 
sprouting from the decayed props, the existence of which in this 
colliery would seem to be proved by the scales found by Mr. 
Meade in the webs, I have never yet seen a single individual of 
that tribe. 
I conclude this somewhat lengthy notice of this very interesting 
insect, by an extract from a recent paper by Mr. Meade,* in 
which the facts connected with this spider are most ably em- 
bodied :— 
“Tt is an exceedingly interesting fact that a minute spider, 
ordinarily living in the open fields, should find its way to such a 
depth beneath the surface of the ground, and multiply to such an 
extent as to be able to construct, by the united labours of hun- 
dreds, immense sheets of web, stretching through all the deserted 
subterranean galleries. It seems that this little creature at the 
Cephalo-thorax pale dirty brown, eyes small, legs, and palpi pale reddish or brownish 
yellow; first and fourth pair of legs, which are the longest, equal in length, third pair the 
Shortest, abdomen oviform, rather convex above, projecting over the base of the cephalo- 
thorax; it is thinly covered with hair, glossy, of a blackish brown colour, sometimes tinged 
with green, and hasa series of angular lines (frequently obscured or totally absent) of a 
pale yellowish brown hue, whose vertices are directed forwards, extending along the middle 
of the upper part. 
* On the Occurence of Spiders and their Webs in Coal-pits. By R. H. MeabE, F.R.S. 
Annals and Magazine of Natural History for July, 1860. 
