Arachnida. 5621 



be a good locality for a naturalist ; and so it proved, for I there found 

 several rare spiders, and an unrecorded British one. I here noticed 

 numerous specimens of Dolomedes mirabilis, a fine, large species, not 

 uncommon in well-wooded districts, though I never found it in York- 

 shire. Many of the females which 1 saw were running about carry- 

 ing their cocoons (which are large, globular sacs made of yellow silk) 

 with them. By this habit of carrying their eggs about with them 

 they closely resemble the Lycosse, but present some interesting points 

 of difference : one is that the cocoon is carried beneath the sternum 

 in Dolomedes, and held there by the falces and palpi ; while in the 

 genus Lycosa it is attached to the spinners by lines of silk. In the 

 Dolomedes, again, the mother constructs a large, dome-shaped web 

 among bushes before the eggs are hatched, beneath which she retires 

 with her cocoon, on leaving which the young cluster together on lines 

 of their own spinning, where they remain, under the care of their 

 mother, until they are able to provide for themselves: the different 

 species of Lycosse, on the contrary, carry their cocoons about with 

 them until the young are extricated, which then cluster together 

 upon their mother's neck, and travel about with her. 



On the gorse and other bushes I saw many species of Epeira. I 

 observed numerous colonies of young specimens of E. diadema, of 

 different sizes and ages, but all immature. The adult females of this 

 species, as well as those of E. inclinata and some others, deposit their 

 eggs in a cocoon, in the autumn, which is secreted beneath a stone ; 

 the mother then dies, and the young escape from their nest in the 

 spring, when they climb into a neighbouring bush, and spin a few 

 lines, on which they congregate together into a compact mass, and 

 remain in society until they attain some size. I may here allude to 

 the widely different points which occur in the economy of spiders : 

 in many, I may say most, species the females show great attachment 

 for their young, and remain with them for some time after they leave 

 the cocoon ; while in others the young are left to shift for themselves, 

 the eggs not being hatched for some months after the death of the 

 parents. This difference seems to depend in a great measure upon 

 the season of the year at which the different species arrive at matu- 

 rity and deposit their eggs. The males and females of some may be 

 found in an adult state early in the spring, when the young are gene- 

 rally brought up, in the early part of the summer, under their parent's 

 care. The same thing happens with those whose eggs are hatched 

 dining any part of the summer or beginning of autumn : but in those 

 spiders which do not arrive at maturity until late in the season 



