5618 Arachnida. 



Sketch of a short Arachnological Excursion. 

 By R. H. Meade, F.R.C.S. 



Having, during the summer of 1856, made a short arachnological 

 excursion into Oxfordshire, I have drawn up a list of the spiders 

 which I captured there, together with a few observations respecting 

 their habits and haunts, in the hope that they may not be devoid of 

 interest to some of the readers of the ' Zoologist.' The locality which 

 I visited was a quiet rural district, situated midway between Bucking- 

 ham and Bicester, just within the borders of Oxfordshire. The 

 country around is thickly wooded, and the geological formation the 

 great oolite. 



I left home by the mail train on the evening of June 23rd. The 

 previous few days had been dull and damp, but the glass was rising, 

 so I hoped the weather was clearing up ; and my prognostications 

 proved true, for, though there was a slight drizzling rain in the morn- 

 ing when I arrived at my destination, it soon cleared off; and by the 

 time I had breakfasted at my friend's house, and was ready to start 

 on my rambles, the sun burst out, and there was every prospect of a 

 glorious summer's day. 



The house was seated in a pretty garden, and partly covered with 

 creeping plants ; and before going further I took a rapid glance 

 among the leaves and stems of the creepers, and the shrubs in the 

 garden, to see if they would yield anything of interest. The most 

 abundant spider that I here noticed was Textrix lycosina (Tegenaria 

 lycosina, Walck.), a pretty species, which is tolerably common in 

 most parts of Great Britain, and chiefly found in the crevices of 

 rocks or loose stone walls. Its superior spinners are triarticulate and 

 very long, with the spinning-tubes arranged on the under side of the 

 terminal joint, and they are employed in the construction of its snare, 

 which consists of a large sheet of web stretched over the stones or 

 plants, and connected with a cylindrical tube extending to the spi- 

 der's retreat. In a corner of the ceiling of the porch over the door, I 

 found an adult female of Philodromus dispar, sitting near its cocoon, 

 which it had constructed in that situation. I noticed on the shrubs 

 in the garden several specimens of that pretty, green, round-bodied 

 spider, Epeira cucurbitina, which so closely resembles in colour the 

 leaves of the plants among which it resides that it is not easily seen ; 

 it is best detected by shaking the boughs violently, when it falls to 

 the ground, always, however, spinning a thread by the way, up which 



