268 



five years, I have never myself witnessed the exercise of this 

 propensity. The late Mr. Eichard Beck is the only observer, 

 with whom I have been personally acquainted, who has assured 

 me of his having witnessed the capture and devouring of the male 

 by the female. I imagine that the male usually manages to 

 escape ; perhaps he times his advances so as to make them after 

 his partner has dined, and is consequently in a good humour, 

 and with the edge, at loast, of her appetite blunted. 



This spider is abundant everywhere, and is the one usually 

 alluded to under the popular name of the " Garden spider." Its 

 snare is, I believe, always perpendicular, and has no void place 

 in the centre ; its positions and localities are too numerous and 

 well known to need detail ; it is, however, never, so far as I 

 know, found in buildings of any kind. It is adult at the end of 

 the summer and in early autumn, and is found in all parts of 

 Great Britain and Ireland. 



When first hatched, and for some little time afterwards, the 

 young are of a dull orange-yellowish colour, with a black patch 

 on the hinder part of the abdomen. The brood live together, 

 certainly until after the first moulting of the skin, spinning 

 numerous lines among the leaves and other objects near at hand ; 

 but when, exactly, they separate and first form their orbicular 

 snares, I have not been able to ascertain. 



EPEIEA SCALAMS. 



Epeira scalaeis, Walch., Black., Spid. Great Brit, and Irel., 

 p. 331, pi. xxiv., fig. 240. 

 This fine and striking-looking spider, is, like the last, rather 

 variable in size. The male measures from 4 to 4 } lines in length 

 and the female from 6 to 8 lines. In the form of the cephalo- 

 thorax it resembles Epeira diademata, Clerck. ; the colour of that 

 part is yellow, slightly tinged with brown and with a narrow, 

 longitudinal, central, stripe, and a broader lateral band on each 

 side, of a blackish-brown hue. It is also thinly clothed with 

 hoary hairs. 



