THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



59 



hamii is the common house spider of Europe, and its dingy snares are familiar 

 objects in the corners of disused rooms and out-buildings. 



Searching amongst Foliage. — A great number of spiders are to be found 

 amongst foliage, but I only include here those spiders whose webs are most 

 likely to attract the attention of ramblers in the country — Agelena labyrinthica, 

 Theridion sisyphium, various species of the genus Linyphia, Meta segmentata, 

 Zilla atrica, Epeira diademata,E. scalaris, E. cornuta, E. quadrata. 



My favourite spiders are the tenants of the webs of radiating and spiral 

 lines — those of the Family Epeirides, and especially those of the typical genus 

 Epeira, which are among the largest, most handsome, and best known of all 

 our British spiders. The adult females are truly beautiful creatures, and it 

 would be difficult to say which of the above mentioned species is the most 

 handsome — diademata with its white cruciform marking on a yellow-brown 

 ground, scalaris with its yellow abdomen and rich brown band, or quadrata 

 with its four large white spots on a very variable but always extremely beauti- 

 ful ground colour. Cornuta is a beautiful species but is less gaily coloured 

 than the three just mentioned. The familiar garden spider {Epeira diade- 

 mata) is a generally distributed species, and is found in woods and hedge-rows, 

 as well as in gardens. Tn no situation have I found it more abundantly than 

 in the Louth Cemetery, where in early autumn hardly a shrub is free from its 

 conspicuous webs. Epeira quadrata is more plentiful on the coast sand-hills 

 at Mablethorpe, than in any other locality in this district ; when I visited the 

 place last October it was literally abundant, the specimens being adult, and 

 of a rich amber colour, with a well developed quadrangle of whitish spots. 

 This species generally constructs its snares amongst the strong grass or about 

 the dewberry bushes, and it is but rarely to be found on the sea buckthorns 

 which are so plentiful on our sea-banks. The nest made by this spider is 

 dome-shaped and open at the bottom, and when the web is placed amongst 

 grass it is very conspicuous. 



On these sand-hills also large sheets of web leading downwards towards a 

 funnel-shaped retreat, the work of the Labyrinth spider [Agelena labyrinthica), 

 are stretched over the grass and low branches of the sea buckthorns, and 

 must be familiar even to those not interested in natural history. Within the 

 tube connected with these webs is to found a quantity of insect remains, in- 

 cluding sometimes the wing-cases of beetles of considerable size. 



The toil of Theridion sisyphmm (T. nervosum, in Black wall's " Spiders of 

 Great Britain and Ireland") is of large size, and is composed of innumerable 

 lines crossing and re-crossing each other in all directions. Furze bushes are 

 the favourite dwelling places of this spider, and five or six, or often a much 

 larger number, not unfrequently take up their abode in one bush, 



