Cambridge. — On the Senders of Weio 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 

 debris, collected in marshes or on the borders of ponds and streamis, are 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 flowei'S, 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, etc., 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-jjarasitic, 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 Epeira opuntice 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 general: 

 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 



