76 Armitt : Obsei'vations on Spiders at Rydal. 



The Tetragnatha loA'es, too, the rills of Loughrigg-, and in 

 late May and early June, when the butterwort and the cotton- 

 grass are out, it may be found early on cloudy evenings hanging 

 upside down on its web, stretched from marge to marge of the 

 running water. But as these fine specimens are yellow-banded 

 below, they may be of the fellow-species, Solajidri. 



When we come to the sheet spinners, we find it is Linyphia 

 triangularis that is the common species of garden and neigh- 

 bourhood. The webs begin to show at the end of May, and 

 presently the Irish yews and the evergreens are decked with 

 these close, finely-wrought sheets. They are wrought in the 

 night, and I have only once seen a spider at work in the 

 junipers of the fells, and then the method in its hither-and- 

 thither running could not be detected. The sheets are generally 

 stayed by strong lines from above, to resist the push of the 

 winds ; and yet I have seen them swayed dangerously by a 

 breeze from below. They are sometimes twelve inches in 

 length, and are crossed by a thousand lines, so that the texture 

 is almost dense. This species, delicate in shape compared w^ith 

 the orb-weavers, is frequently seen upside down on the web, and 

 in the eagerness of pairing time (August) the two sexes may be 

 caught together. Placed in a tumbler, they make no attempt 

 to escape, but after constructing the necessary lines by which to 

 suspend themselves, spend the time in mutual engrossment. It 

 is the male who takes the lead in line-making and who hangs at 

 first from the top ones in proud supremacy, while the female 

 meekly waits below ; at the end of a few hours, however, the 

 position is reversed, she is at the top, and he is crouching to the 

 side below. The allied species, Linyphia 7nontana, has been 

 taken by a friend's sweep-net from the lake shore. 



A more remarkable Linyphia of the garden is marginata, 

 which, according to Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, is peculiar to 

 a mountain district. For some years it had its home in an Irish 

 yew, where the great sheets it spread quite early in the season 

 between the tree and paling attracted attention. Presently 

 the spinner was discovered in the tree, a fine spider, whose 

 abdomen, larger than the usual Linyphia' s, showed a dark 

 pattern on a white tessellated ground. The more slender male, 

 too, was presently seen, and the season of maturity seemed 

 altogether earlier than that of Z. triangularis. But for two 

 years, alas ! I have looked in vain for this spider. Perhaps the 

 increasing dust of the high-road, caused by the motor-cars, has 

 banished it from its old haunt, and I have discovered no new one. 



Naturalist, 



