Found, though very rarely, among moss and grass in woods 

 at Bloxworth. I have also lately received it from Mr. 0. W. 

 Dale, hy whom it was found at Glanvilles AVootton. 



This spider forms a beautiful little white, closely woven, silken, 

 egg cocoon, of a somewhat poar shape truncated at the larger end, 

 and fixes it by a short foot stalk to a grass stem, or to a 

 rush or twig near the ground. The beauty, however, of these 

 little cocoons soon gives way before prudential considerations, for 

 they are quickly covered over with a thick coating of clay mixed with 

 silk, making them look like little pellets of dirt casually stuck 

 upon the stems and twigs. Doubtless this clay coating is intended 

 both for concealment, as well as to secure a more even 

 temperature for the eggs (clay being an excellent nonconductor 

 of either heat or cold) and also to keep off the attacks of insect 

 parasites. I do not think that I have ever myself seen a nest of 

 this spider, but, according to Mr. Blackwall, it measures about 3 

 lines in diameter.* 



AGROECA PKOXIMA. 



Aoelena proxima, Cambr., Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. xxvii, p. 415, 

 pi. 54, No. 13. 



In general appearance, form, and colours this spider is very 

 like Agroeca Irunnea ; it is however smaller, the male measuring 

 no more than one-fifth of an inch in length, and the golden tinge 

 given to A. Irunnea, from the colouring of the hairy clothing, is 

 never present, so far as I have seen, in A. proximo,; the pattern 

 also on the cephalo-thorax and abdomen, though very similar, 

 is in general much less distinct. 



Some examples have a contral, longitudinal, pale lino on tho 

 fore half of the upper side of the abdomen. Tho radial apophysis 

 of the male palpus is shorter and loss prominent, and the 

 digital joint is smaller ; the palpal organs also differ in their 

 structure from those of tho preceding species. 



•Since writing the aboTe I have met with an egg oocoon of exactly 3 

 lines in diameter, and much shorter than those of the the next spider, 

 A. proximo. This I conjecture to belong to A. brunnea. See plate ii., fig. 7a. 



