MW 
* 
154 AGELENIDA3. 
organs are highly developed, complicated in structure, prominent at the extremity, with 
a curved, pointed, red-brown process situated at the base of the most prominent part, on its 
outer side, and their prevailing colour is very dark, reddish-browm, approaching to black. 
In localities suited to its habits, this active spider is frequently very nufnerous, con¬ 
structing among gorse, heath, and coarse herbage an extensive, horizontal sheet of w r eb, 
having a cylindrical tube connected with it, which constitutes the abode of its possessor. 
The web is attached to surrounding objects by its margin, and derives additional support 
from fine lines, intersecting one another at various angles, whose extremities are in contact 
with its surface and with such objects as are situated at a moderate elevation above it. 
The sexes pair in July, and in August the female fabricates a large sac of compact, white silk, 
which comprises one or two lenticular cocoons, composed of white silk of a fine texture, 
measuring about T 7 B ths of an inch in diameter, on an average. Each cocoon, according 
to its size, contains from 50 to 120 large, spherical eggs, of a pale-yellow colour, not 
agglutinated together, and is enveloped in a lenticular covering of strong, white silk, which is 
made secure to the inner surface of the sac by silken lines closely compacted in the form 
of short, strong pillars, evidently alluded to by Lister in the following passage: “ Ipse autem 
folliculus stella in modum formatus est” ( c De Araneis,’ p. 62). This sac is firmly attached to 
stems of gorse, heath, or long grass, and has usually withered leaves, particles of soil, 
and other materials of various kinds distributed over its surface. 
Mr. R. Templeton has detected this species in Ireland. 
In the ‘ Report of the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science, held at Cambridge, in 1833,’ p. 445, the fact is enunciated that the superior spinners 
of Agelena labgrintJdca and some other spiders have the spinning-tubes disposed on the 
inferior surface of the elongated terminal joint, and consequently, that the opinion previously 
entertained, that the function exercised by these organs is simply that of touch, and that they 
are employed solely in regulating the application of the spinners to appropriate objects, 
is decidedly erroneous. 
Agelena Hyndmanii. PI. X, fig. 98. 
Agelena Hyndmanii, Templeton, MS. History of Irish Arachnida. 
Length of the female, jth of an inch. 
The intermediate eyes of the anterior row are the smallest of the eight. The cephalo- 
thorax is rectangular anteriorly, and circular posteriorly; it is of a brownish-green colour, the 
cephalic region being much darker; an abbreviated, dark line, forked before, occurs in the 
middle, whence other lines proceed towards the origins of the legs, but terminate abruptly 
before they reach the margin; underneath it is of a greenish-brown colour, with dark edges. 
The abdomen is ovate, of a very deep-green hue, with a dentated, central, pale fascia, 
extending along the upper part, and receiving at its base a dark-green or black, lance-shaped 
macula; underneath it is of a grass-green hue. The legs are spiny, hairy, and of a greenish- 
brown colour, with darker annuli; the fourth pair is the longest, then the first, and the third 
