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here those works only are in general inserted, which treat of recent, 

 European spiders, and the contents of which are of a systematical 

 or descriptive (and zoo-geographical) character. From among arach- 

 nological works, the contents of which are of a different character, 

 those only have been admitted, which I have in the present treatise 

 had occasion to cite (their titles are enclosed in brackets); the same 

 course has been followed with respect to works treating of exotic 

 spiders, the titles of which are here printed in smaller type. The 

 date before the title of a work marks the year when it was pu- 

 blished. A t placed before the title indicates that the work be- 

 longs to the prse-Linnaean period, an *, that I have not myself had 

 the opportunity of consulting it. Conf. 1. c, pp. 15, 19. — As far 

 as I am acquainted with the meagre litterature that exists on the 

 subject of fossil spiders, I have given a brief account of it, loc. cit., 

 pp. 220-233*). 



1) It may be asked why I, in my catalogue of arachnological litterature, 

 have not included any other works than those written in Latin or in the living 

 languages of Teutonic or Roman origin: the reason is not that I undervalue what 

 may have been written in other languages — which I am very far from doing — 

 but simply that I am unable even to understand the titles of works written in , 

 for example, Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Finnish or Magyar, and thus I have 

 only by accident come to learn that a couple of works in these languages treat 

 on arachnological subjects. — It may in general be taken for granted, that a per- 

 son of liberal education has some acquaintance with Latin, and knows at least one 

 Teutonic and one Romanic language; and when this is the case he can, without 

 any great waste of time, learn so much of the others as to be able, with the 

 help of a grammar and dictionary, to understand the purely descriptive works 

 within his own department, that are written in those languages. This is probably 

 the reason why, in determining questions of priority, it is customary to attribute 

 as much importance to works written in, f. inst. , Portuguese or in Swedish as 

 to those written in any of the more generally studied languages. But it is of 

 course impossible to assign the same weight to all languages: no naturalist 

 can have time to acquire the knowledge of all the European languages, which 

 have already a scientific litterature to show, and the languages of this part of 

 the world will assuredly not long continue to keep exclusive possession of that 

 territory. It would seem therefore to be absolutely necessary, even for the fu- 

 ture, in the selection of the works of which a zoologist or botanist ought to be 

 expected to possess a knowledge, and which in the determination of questions of 

 priority ought to be taken into account, to confine oneself to those which are 

 written in the living languages of Teutonic or Roman origin and in Latin. — 

 The want of a common scientific language will unquestionably become gradually 

 more aud more felt; and as a return to Latin can hardly be expected, it is not 

 improbable that English may some time or other acquire that rank, not only 



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