﻿President's Address. 



AEACHNIDA. 



But for a few Spiders recorded by the Rev. 0. P. Cam- 

 bridge in 1862/ this difficult and unpopular class was 

 practically untouched in Forth till I took it up about 

 eighteen years ago. Attention was first given to the order 

 Araneidea or Spiders, next to the Phalangidea or Harvest- 

 men, then to the Chernetidea or False-scorpions, and lastly 

 to the Acarina or Mites and Ticks. For convenience these 

 may best be considered separately. 



Aeane^ (Araneidea). — In the working out of my num- 

 erous collections of Spiders, I was fortunate in securing the 

 co-operation of my friend Prof. G. H. Carpenter of Dublin, 

 who was then studying the group in Ireland. Many of the 

 specimens were also examined for us by the Rev. 0. P. 

 Cambridge, F.R.S. The results of several years' investigations 

 around Edinburgh were given in a joint paper by Mr Carpenter 

 and myself, which was published by this Society in 1894 ; 

 and three supplements have followed, the last in 1904.^ The 

 species recorded in these papers number 204. In 1897 we 

 published in the Annals of Scottish Natural History a list of 

 the species obtained by me in the Upper Forth district — 

 which in this instance has been treated separately ; and in 

 the same magazine for 1905 I reported several additions 

 thereto.^ The number recorded from " Upper Forth " is 134 

 of which 13 are not in the Edinburgh list. Adding two or 

 three taken many years ago near Cockburnspath by the late 

 Dr James Hardy,^ we have in all 220 Aranese at present 

 known from the Forth area, out of a probable 250 or there- 

 about. Records of some interesting mountain species may be 

 expected when the higher hills beyond Callander have been 

 more fully searched. Near the summit of Am Binnein, in 

 September 1902, I found Tmeticus montigena (L. Koch) fairly 



^ "Sketch of an Arachnological Tour in Scotland in 1861," Zoologist, 

 p. 8041 (1862). Cf. also Entomologist for 1877. 



^"Spiders (Araneidea) collected in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh," 

 Ptoc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., xii. pp. 527-590; ih., xiii. pp. 308-315; xiv. 

 pp. 168-178; andxvi. pp. 27-34. 



3 "List of Spiders collected in 'Upper Forth,'" Ann. Scot. Nat. Eist., 

 1897, pp. 226-236; and additions, il., 1905, p. 120. 



* Trans. Berw. Nat. Club, vol. vii. 



