313 
ZOOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
AlUCHNIDA 
BY 
W. S. Dallas, F.L.S., M.E.S. 
A. Separate Publications. 
Blackwall, John. A History of tlie Spiders of Great Britain 
and Ireland. Part ii. pp. 210, plates 17. London, 1864. 
Published by the Bay Society. 
The second part of Blackwalhs British Spiders, published by 
the Ray Society, completes the most important work on those 
animals which has appeared for some years. It forms a volume 
consisting of 384 large 4to pages, and is illustrated with 29 
plates, representing tlie British species of spiders, of the natural 
size and magnified, with numerous figures of details of struc- 
ture and of the webs and egg-cocoons of many of the species. 
The first part, published in 1861, contains an introduction of 
twelve pages, giving a short description of the anatomical struc- 
ture of the Araneida, and indicating the terminology employed 
by the author, and also discussing some general matters in the 
life-history of the animals, such as the change of skin, the 
reproduction of lost limbs, the production of the web and forma- 
tion of the egg-cocoons, and the power of ascending into the 
air possessed by many species. The work includes the results 
of Templeton^s investigations upon the Irish spiders, the MS. 
of which has been for many years in the possession of the 
Ray Society ; it contains descriptions of many ncAV species 
and the synonymy of those previously described. The genera 
are carefully characterized, but the characters of the families arc 
deficient in precision. The classification adopted will be dis- 
cussed in a subsequent page. 
Simon, Eugene. Ilistoire naturelle des Araignees (Araneides). 
Paris, 1864, 8vo, pp. 540. 
In the absolute dearth of anything like a treatise on the 
general elassifieation of the Araneida, this work by M. Eugene 
Simoii must be most welcome to naturalists. It contains a 
