241 



The constantly smaller size of the spring and early summer 

 examples (which are elaborated out of the hybernated young of the 

 preceding autumnal brood) is to be accounted for, as it appears to 

 me, by a great lack of food and sun heat, as compared with the 

 amount of both these necessary conditions, enjoyed by the 

 autumnal brood ; the latter having had the benefit ever since 

 they were hatched, in May and June, of the abundant insect-life 

 and summer heat of June, July, August, and September. 



There is scarcely a conceivable situation, among herbage, 

 bushes, heather, &c, where Meta segmentata may not be found 

 abundantly. It is perhaps most plentiful among furze bushes 

 on heaths and commons. Their orbicular snares are invariably 

 extended at an inclination to tho plane of the earth. I have never 

 detected one extended perpendicularly. In the centre of the 

 snare is a vacant space where the spider sits with its legs 

 extended forwards and backwards, dropping as if dead on the 

 least disturbance I have more than onco seen one drop in this 

 way, not from fear, but upon an insect which it had espied on 

 the ground a little way below it, ascending again quickly with 

 its prize, by means of the Hues drawn from its spinners in the 

 doscent. 



The webs of this spider are a beautiful object when covered 

 with millions of dewdrops on a bright early-autumn morning. 

 In some seasons the furze bushes on our Dorsetshire heaths are 

 completely covered by the snares of this and another equally 

 abundant spider, Linyphia triangularis, Clk. (p. 227). 



META MERIANJE. 



Meta Merian;e, Scojjoli, Ent. Cam. p. 395. 



Epeira antriada, Wdloh., Blackw., Spid. Gt. Brit, and Ircl., p, 



351, pi. xxvi., fig. 254. 

 Epeira celata, Blackw., I.e., p. 353, pi. xxvi., fig. 254. 



Tho length of tho male is from 3 to 5 liues, and of the female 

 from 4 to 6^ linos. 



