158 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
Gastropacha Ilicifolia, 
... Quercifolia, 
Endromis Versicoloia {$ Sc 2 )j 
Saturnia Carpini, &c. 
— John Piquet, 12, York Street, Jersey ; 
August 7. 
ON THE OCCURRENCE OF SPIDERS 
AND THEIR WEBS IN COAL-PITS. 
BY R. H. MEADE, F.R.C.S. 
(From the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural 
History' for July, 1800. 
Extensive masses or layers of web-like 
tissue have often been noticed in some 
of the northern collieries, and they have 
generally been considered as the myce- 
lium of a Fungus; in fact, some years 
back, a filamentous cottony substance, 
obtained in some of the Durham coal- 
pits, was submitted by Mr. Hunt (of the 
Loudon Mining Record Olfice) to the 
examination of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, 
and pronounced by him to be fungous 
matter. 
On the 7th of F ebrnary last T received 
a small spider from Mr. Stainton, the 
learned editor of the ‘ Entomologist’s 
Annual,’ accompanied by a note stating 
that it had been sent to him, to be named, 
by a correspondent who gave the follow- 
ing account of it: — “It is the insect 
which spins those enormous and compact 
sheets of web in all our northern col- 
lieries; and I feel interested in it, for I 
believe that some eminent naturalists 
have contended that these webs were not 
the production of a spider, but Fungi.” 
The spider was a minute species of Ne- 
riene, not quite the eighth of an inch in 
length, which had become dry and 
shrivelled, so that it was impossible to 
determine its specific name. J wrote 
word to that cll’cct to Mr. Staiuton, and 
also said that it seemed highly im- 
probable that such a small spider could 
construct large masses of web, even 
if the structures in question were really 
the production of spiders at all, which I 
doubted; but which question, I added, 
might easily be settled by examining 
some of them with the microscope. 
On the 16th of February I received 
another communication on this subject, 
from Mr. David P. Morison, of Pelton 
Colliery, Chester-le-Street, Durham (the 
gentleman who had written to Mr. Stain- 
ton). He enclosed in a letter a living 
specimen of the same spider which I had 
received before, and also a small portion 
of web wound round a piece of wood. In 
his letter i\Ir. Morison said, “Mr. Stain- 
ton was so kind as to forward your letter 
to me for perusal ; and I see that you 
doubt that these enormous webs are the 
production of these little creatures. If 
they are Fungi, how can the following 
facts be accounted for? — 1. On passing, 
last night, through the portion of our 
under-ground workings in which these 
webs abound, I observed that tbe gaps I 
had made in the webs on my last visit to 
that quarter were being spun over again ; 
and on one of them I counted twenty- 
three or twenty-four little spiders busily 
engaged in mending the rent. 2. In 
these webs, on closer inspection through 
a small pocket magnifier, I discovered a 
few wings, &c., of a small Midge (at 
least I imagine them to be so), sur- 
rounded by several coats of web.” ^Ir. 
Morison added that tbe webs clung with 
great tenacity to the face and hands of 
any one passing through them ; and also 
that- they could be wound round a piece 
of wood, which he did not think the fila- 
mentous tissues of a Fungus could be. 
On examining the small specimen of 
tissue sent to me I at once saw that it 
