The Spiders of Dorset, with an Appendix containing Descriptions of those British Species not yet found in Dorsetshire Studi sui Ragni malesi e papuani

Abstract

IF we take down part 2 of vol. i. of the twelfth edition of Linneé's “Systema Naturæ” (1767) and refer to that marvellously incongruous order Aptera, in which the old naturalist contrived to group together nearly all the Arthropods known to him and which agreed almost solely in the one point of the non-possession of wings, we find under the genus “Aranea” only 47 species indicated, and of these only 9 are from outside Europe. In the second edition of the “Fauna Suecica” (1761) we find 33 species indicated for Scandinavia. Thus six years later all the spiders known to Linné from outside his native country amounted to 14 species! At the present time 518 species are recorded as British, and a still almost unexplored region of the Eastern Archipelago has contributed nearly as many from the researches of one or two naturalist-travellers, with whom spider-collecting was certainly not considered of first importance. And yet, notwithstanding the vast and rapid strides that arachnology has made within the twenty years past, the number of workers is still small. The subject is not always an attractive one to naturalists, and is often repugnant to non-naturalists, with whom a passion for collecting or studying spiders is seldom associated with respect for the naturalist thus smitten. But all this is rapidly changing, and no two men have done more to bring this about than the authors of the books noticed below.

The Spiders of Dorset, with an Appendix containing Descriptions of those British Species not yet found in Dorsetshire.

Rev. Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, &c. From the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, edited by Prof. James Buckman. (Sherborne: L. H. Ruegg, pp. 1–625, with 6 plates, 1879–1881, 8vo.)

Studi sui Ragni malesi e papuani.

Per T. Thorell. III. Ragni dell' Austro-Malesia e del Capo York, conservati nel Museo Civico di Storia Naturali di Genoa. Pp. 1–720. 8vo. (Genoa, 1881.)