78 



Peacock : Gamekeeper's Pole, Cadiiev, Bn'oo-. 



with them, attached to the abdomen, a position in which it 

 seems not to inconvenience their movements in the least. The 

 females appear encumbered with this bagg-ag-e in the first days 

 of June. On i6th July last year I came upon a number of 

 Lycosas^ sunning themselves, as they love to do, on a patch of 

 dry leaves in the wood. They carried the usual egg-sac, against 

 the pale grey of which their dark abdomens were sharply defined. 

 But a few of them showed less sharpness of outline ; the silken 

 cover of the bag seemed broken, and the spider's body was 

 clouded with a grey film. It needed a magnifying glass to dis- 

 close the state of affairs. The crisis had arrived, and the eggs 

 hatched out. The shell of the bag was cracked, and a number 

 of tiny spiders had crept on the mother's back, Avhere their 

 looping, transparent legs and minute bodies, fitted together 

 tightly, gave them the appearance of chain armour. I saw one 

 infant crawl out of the bag, slowly upward, and fit itself against 

 the others. Strange instinct, that without direction could cause 

 the little creature to assume a position of safety and warmth, 

 till it was strong enough to fight the battle of life for itself! 



Ground spiders are justly held in awe by creatures like them- 

 selves. I once saw, on the Marsh, three little spiders rush up 

 grass-blades and hang there motionless while a striped ground- 

 spider passed, after which they returned to the sward and were 

 lost in it. I have found '''Salticus sceniciis in winter under the 

 bark of an old tree in the parrock, and Enophrys erraticus in the 

 garden. Xysticus cristatus I have taken on the fell. 



Besides the spiders already mentioned, Clnbiona terrestris 

 lives in the garden, and Pachygnatha degeerii, Dictyna arundi- 

 nacea in the junipers of the fell, Meta ?neriance under cavernous 

 rocks in the park. Lepthyphantes tenuis I have taken there, 

 too, male and female, at the end of June; and L. flavipes 

 elsewhere. Pardosa pallata has been taken. The queen of 

 orb-weavers, *Araiieus qundratus, has been brought to me from 

 the heather near Hawkshead Hill. 



[The spiders mentioned in this paper have, with a few 

 exceptions, been most kindly identified for me by the Rev. F. O. 

 Pickard-Cambridge. These few are marked with an asterisk.] 



The Gamekeeper's Pole, Cadney, Brigg, Season 1904- 



1905. — 105 Weasels, 55 Stoats, i Polecat, 24 Domestic Cats, 

 20 Magpies, 12 Carrion Crows, and 4 Sparrow Hawks. The 

 Rats have not been carried to the pole this year. — E. Adrian 

 Woodruffe-Peacock. 



Naturalist, 



