349 



The abdomen is oval, rather truncated before, and obtusely 

 pointed behind. The uppor part is of a deep yellowish-brown 

 colour, with a broad, longitudinal, marginal band on each side, 

 clothed with short white pubescence. The normal marking is 

 obscure, but of a palo yellow-brownish hue, pointed behind, and 

 between it and the marginal white band, on each %ide, is a 

 longitudinal row of small but vivid white spots. These are 

 often obsolete, and generally so in the adult female. The sides 

 are da?'k brown, and the under part is paler, with a rather 

 obscure marginal stripe on oach side, and two others along the 

 middle, near together, aud converging towards the spinners, 

 which, however, they do not reach. Very young examples alone 

 have the transverse bars visible on the hinder part of the 

 abdomen, the white marginal bands being also indistinct ; from 

 such examples Mr. Blackwall described as a new species Dolomedes 

 ornatus, loc. cit. 



The female resembles the male in its markings, but it is, in 

 the adult state, usually darker, and the white bands are less dis- 

 tinct. 



This is one of our largest British spiders, and its dark brown 

 hue, in contrast with the white longitudinal bands on the 

 cophalo-thorax, and abdomen, render it one not easily mistaken. 

 Immature examples of both sexes, as well as adult females, 

 have been met with frequently in marshy spots on Bloxworth 

 Heath, and in Morden Park, but I have never yot myself met with 

 the adult male. The description above given of that sex has been 

 made from examples kindly sent to me f com Wokingham by the 

 Rev. 0. W. Penny. Towards the end of the summer the female 

 takes her egg-cocoon to the top of a tuft of rushes or low bush 

 (I have found it both on the swedtgale and on low rhododendrons), 

 and there surrounds it with a maze of web within wliich the 

 young are hatched, and, sitting on tho outside, she caret' idly 

 guards and tends the brood until largo enough to disperse and 

 shift for themselves. 



Dolomedes fimbriatus'w also met with in the Fens of Cambridge- 

 shire, as well as in Scotland and Ireland. 



