THE SPIDERS OF GUERNSEY. 



BY E. D. 3IAKQUAND, A.L.S. 



It would be ditiiciilt to name any other group of animals 

 against which popular prejudice is so widespread and yet so 

 utterly baseless, as against spiders. Most people dislike and 

 even dread them ; by many they are regarded Avith feelings 

 akin to horror ; they have an ill name, and no one will speak a 

 word in their favour. And yet it is not easy to perceive 

 how such a deep-rooted and universal aversion can have 

 originated. Spiders are strictly carnivorous, and therefore are 

 incapable of doing any injury to our persons, our clothes, our 

 food, our furniture, or anything else Ave possess. And not 

 only are they, as far as man is concerned, perfectly harmless, 

 but they are in reality among his best friends, since they keep 

 within due bounds the myriad insect pests Avhich, but for the 

 activity and vigilance of spiders, Avould speedily become 

 an intolerable torment and a plague. 



The best knoAvn representative of the class — the big- 

 black House Spider — is no doubt a creature of most villanous 

 aspect ; but there are numbers to be found in every wayside 

 bush and hedgebank which no one could refuse to call 

 beautiful, if elegance of form, brilliancy of colour, and delicacy 

 of marking go to make anything beautiful. Many of these, it 

 is true, are small, and therefore easily escape notice ; but the 

 most minute objects in nature are often the most gorgeously 

 adorned, as every person Avell knoAvs Avho is in the habit 

 of using a pocket lens. 



Considering the immense profusion and variety of spiders 

 Avhich inhabit cA^ery piece of open country, and the facility 

 with AA'hich they may be collected, it is strange how few 

 scientific men ever pay any regard to them. In every part of 

 the kingdom Ave may meet Avith entomologists Avho devote 

 their studies to the more attractive orders of insects, such as 

 Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera ; but it is the 

 rarest thing possible to find a naturalist Avho possesses even an" 

 elementary idea of the spider-fauna of his OAvn neighbourhood. 



