8042 



Araehnida. 



in situations similar in general characteristics, in the South of Eng- 

 land there would have been, at this time of the year, a host almost 

 under every stone, here a score of stones would be turned up entirely 

 blank ; and when any spiders did come to light, they were mostly of 

 species common in most places and widely distributed, though here 

 even individuals of common species were scarce. The only species 

 I found here that had not come under my own eye before was an 

 adult male of Walckenaera bicolor. After three hard days' search on 

 Arthur's Seat, my next day was on the north side of the Penlland 

 Hills, at the nearest point I could reach in a straight line from the 

 Currie Station on the Caledonian Railway. Underneath the loose 

 stones on a wall of a fir plantation, just before 'entering on the moor 

 at the foot of the hills, I captured the only novelty met with in my 

 tour, in the shape of two adult males of a very distinct species of the 

 genus Walckenaera : to this species I have given the name of 

 " borealis." 



At the immediate foot of the hills, in a similar situation, I found an 

 adult female (and immature specimens of both sexes tolerably abun- 

 dant) of Tegenaria silvicola, of which only two British examples had 

 before been captured — one in Norfolk, by the Rev. Hamlet Clarke ; 

 the other by Mr. Meade, in Buckinghamshire. This species would 

 probably be found under the loose stones and lichens on all the walls 

 in this district; and from the condition of the palpi in the males, when 

 I was there, I should judge their time of maturity to be about the end 

 of the summer or beginning of autumn. Should this paper meet the 

 eye of any entomologist in the habit of working that or any similar 

 Scotch district, he would confer a great favour on myself by giving 

 half an hour to the bottling of all the spiders he can find under loose 

 moss-grown stones on the tops of the walls in his beat ; and among 

 them I should confidently reckon he would bottle many of this spe- 

 cies, and probably among them an adult male or two, — a sex, in the 

 adult state, that I much wish to obtain. It is a small species and 

 very active, slipping away like a shot directly the stone under which 

 it lies is moved ; sometimes it will be found on the under side of the 

 stone lifted up. 1 found that the best way to capture it was to wet 

 the fore finger and place it lightly, but quickly, on the specimen, the 

 moment I saw it, and then, impeded by the moisture, there was not 

 much difficulty in securing it. Several hours' severe work on the 

 slopes of the hills, sweeping among the long heather or searching at 

 its roots, produced only three or four species, and but very few spe- 

 cimens of those. An hour's beating in a fir plantation on my way 



