BRITISH SPIDERS. 



73 



The interesting habits of this species are well known, and have 

 led to their being often kept as pets. Indeed a few years ago it 

 became so much a fashion that, like sea anemones during the 

 rage for aquaria, they have become scarce, even in localities such 

 as the ditches about Oxford or Cambridge, which are most adapted 

 for them, and where they were formerly plentiful, they having 

 been caught and sent up to London in quantities for sale by 

 dealers in objects of Natural History. 



They can live indifferently either on dry land or under water, 

 but practically they spend the greater portion of their time in the 

 latter. Their eggs are moored in 

 silken cocoons to the stems of 

 aquatic plants, under a dome-shaped 

 cell, which is filled with air like a 

 diving bell, by the spider carrying 

 down successive globules of air be- 

 tween its legs, which it liberates 

 under the dome until it is filled, — 

 and the young are hatched there. 

 The spider on its way through the 

 water never gets wet. It is clothed 

 ■with hair, which, combined with its 

 respiratory organs, enable it to sur- 

 round itself with a halo or envelop- 

 ing bubble of air in which it moves 

 about protected from wet and well 



supplied with air to breathe. It can be drowned for want of air, 

 however, as well as any other animal. Mr. Blackwall mentions 

 such a case. One of these creatures which had been got in 

 the fens of Cambridgeshire was given to a friend. On being 

 placed in a large goblet more than half filled with water, it 

 speedily formed its dome-shaped cell beneath the surface, attach- 

 ing it to the side of the glass by means of numerous silken lines, 

 and being well supplied with insects, it lived in this state of 



Argyroneta aquatica, water spider, 

 ' female (sli.^htly magnified). 



