372 SPlDEIiS OF C;UEHXSEY. 



shell collections ; they are straight-sided, jj inch in diameter, 

 and 2^ inches long. A few spare ones should be carried in 

 a tin box, and also a small extra supply of spirit, as accidents 

 happen. A piece of card an incli s([uare is useful to slip 

 under the mouth of the tube when an active spider is 

 imprisoned on a wall or on the ground. Pill-boxes 1 never 

 use ; they are bulky, troublesome to work with, and very 

 difficult to manage in the capture of small fleet-footed spiders. 

 Moreover in a glass tube, the specimen may be examined 

 with a lens, and set at liberty again if not wanted. 



A word as to books. Staveley's British Spiders (186G) 

 supplies an excellent and inexpensive introduction to the 

 study, and the beautiful coloured figures and short descriptions 

 wdll be very helpful to start with, but the earnest student 

 will soon feel the want of a more complete text book. The 

 classical work on the subject is Black wall's Spiders of Great 

 Britain and Ireland (1861-64) in which all the species then 

 known in this country (304 in all) are described. A later 

 book on the subject, comprising upwards of two hundred 

 additional British species, is the excellent monograph by the 

 Rev. Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, F.R.S. published in 

 1879-81. Although modestly entitled Tlte Spiders of Dorset^ 

 this work embodies a full description in minute detail, of 

 the 518 species which at that date composed the entire 

 spider-fauna of the British Isles. A systematic List oj 

 British and Irish Spiders^ enumerating 535 species, compiled 

 by the same distinguished arachnologist, appeared in the year 

 1900, and is at the present time the accepted standard 

 catalogue as far as concerns classification and nomenclature. 

 Mr. Pickard-Cambridge has in preparation however a new 

 edition of this catalogue, Avhich will bring the subject, so far 

 as it relates to the l^ritish Isles (including the Channel 

 Islands) entirely up to date. 



A short list of the names of seventeen spiders, all from 

 Guernsey, communicated by Mrs. W. Collings, of Sark, is 

 given in Ansted's Channel Islands (1865), p. 230; but the 

 first paper of impovtance on the subject was published in the 

 Transactions of this Society for the year 1894, from 

 the pen of the late Kev. Frederick O. Pickard-Cambridge 

 (nephew of the author of the Spiders of Dorset)^ and it 

 was compiled he says " from six different sources whose 

 recorded observations extend over a period of forty years." 

 In this list 121 species are noted for all the Channel 

 Islands combined, of which Jei'sey contributes 18 species, 

 Guernsey 39, Alderney 2, Sark 83, Herm 5, and Lihou 



