860 



brown or yellowish-whito colour, more or less strongly edged 

 both before and behind with black, and often divided at their 

 vertices with a black line. On either side of the first two of these 

 bars is a large, distinctly denned, oval, yellowish, or whitish 

 marking, followed towards the spinners by several other smaller 

 ones decreasing gradually in size, the intervals between them 

 being black. The fore half of the sides is black, the hinder part 

 brownish-yellow, spotted with black ; and tho under side is of a 

 dusky black or brownish hue. When, in addition to tho above, 

 the paler portions are in some parts (as is often the case) tinged 

 strongly with red, the appearance of this handsome spider may bo 

 easily imagined. Much variation exists in the extent of the 

 different portions of the above pattern, and in their depth of 

 colouring ; these often taking their prevailing tint from the colour 

 of tho soil in which the spider is found. The best marked, richost 

 coloured, and largest examples are found (at least such is my own 

 experience) on sandy and gravelly heaths, where there is consider- 

 able depth and variety of colouring, arising from tho dark heath- 

 soil, the grey- washed sands which streak it, and the bits of red, 

 black-brown, and yellow gravel strewn on its barer parts. But 

 on the uniformly tinted greyish-yellow sandhills between Poole 

 and Christchurch I have found a dwarf, pale yellow-brown 

 variety, with scarcely any dark markings on it at all, the legs 

 even being of a uniform hue, and wholly destitute of dark annuli. 

 It was long before I could bo convinced that those last specimens 

 were identical in species with the strikingly different examples 

 found abundantly in tho heath district at Bloxworth. 



Trochosa picta runs in sunshine, and forms a vertical cylindrical 

 hole in the sand, lining it slenderly with silk. It appears to be 

 found throughout the sandy or heathy districts of this County ; 

 and I have met with it in tolerable abundance on the borders of 

 the Chcsil Beach between Weymouth and Portland. I have also 

 received it from other parts of England, as well as from Scotland 

 and "Wales. 



The sexes are marked alike, but the male is usually darker 

 coloured than tho female. 



