and sovoral othors are, at present, doubtful species. The very 

 large proportion of British spiders found in Dorsetshire is, no 

 doubt, partly due to the throo distinct varieties of soil men- 

 tioned above, and of which the Bloxworth district is a typical 

 example ; in a great measure it is due, perhaps, to Dorsetshire 

 having been more thoroughly worked than any other, 

 equally limited, portion of the British Islands. To this cause is, . 

 doubtless, due the largo number of species — about 84 — which have, 

 as yot, only been found in this county. Many of thorn will scaixely 

 fail to turn up in the adjoining counties, and porhaps also in 

 more distant ones, when these come in for a fair sliaro of work- 

 ing in this branch of Natural History. 



The Island of Portland boasts, at present, about 17 spocios 

 peculiar to itself — so far at least as Great Britain is concerned — 

 and, of these, three have not as yet been found anywhere else. 

 Out of those above-mentioned as peculiar to Dorsetshire, about 

 47 are yet unrecorded on the continent ; and out of the whole 510 

 British spiders about 128 still remain unrecorded excepting in 

 Great Britain. 



Examples of fourteen out of the fifteen Families of spiders 

 represented in Britain are found in Dorsetshire ; and these four- 

 teen Families comprise 74 genera, as against 83 represented in 

 Britain. 



It should be remarked horo that the following descriptions by 

 no means exhaust tho characters of the different spiders. For 

 the sake of brevity only those characters aro usually given, which 

 have boon considered sufficient fairly to describo the spider, and, 

 where necessary, to distinguish it from its nearest congeners. The 

 descriptions of new species are, of course, given with greater 

 detail than those of spiders already known. 



With regard to the synonymic references which precede the 

 descriptions, the quotation of all thoso that aro at present 

 ascertained would have been, of course, out of the question. 

 Many species have from fifteen to twenty, and even moro ; and tho 

 insertion of all thoso would have too greatly increased tho bulk 

 of the monograph, besides being out of place in a work of this 



