please them, but I should be obliged to accompany
it with a glossary, or translation, and
therefore prefer trying their patience with the
translation only. Moreover, I must spare them
the list of synonyms and references. The
reader who dislikes minute descriptions may be
grateful for it when comparing specimens on the
banks of a pond.

Lycosia piratica: Length of the female, seven-
twentieths of an inch; length of head-chest,
three-twentieths; breadth, one-ninth; breadth of
the body, one-eighth; length of a hind leg, one-
half; length of a leg of the third pair seven-
twentieths.

The intervening eyes of the fore row are
larger than the side ones. The head-chest is
glossy, of a yellowish-brown colour, with a
broad brown band lengthwise on each side, and
a small cleft one of the same hue in the middle,
which ends at the hind indentation; the side
margins being furnished with hairs of brilliant
whiteness. The pincers, or fangs, are strong,
conical, armed with teeth on the inner surface,
and, with the lower jaws, are of a red-brown
colour, the latter being the paler. The lip is of
a dark-brown hue in the middle, and has a
reddish-brown tint at the sides and at the end.
The breast is heart-shaped, and of a yellowish-
brown colour. The legs are provided with
hairs and spines, and are of a greenish-brown
hue, with the exception of the feet, or claws,
which have a reddish-brown tint; the thighs
are the palest, sometimes presenting an appearance
of rings. The feelers have a greenish-
brown colour, the toe-joint excepted, which has
a reddish-brown hue. The body is hairy, convex
above, projecting over the base of the head-
chest; the colour of the upper part is brown,
with a yellowish-brown band in the middle of
the fore part, extending more than a third of its
length; the side margins of this band are
bordered by white lines, which pass beyond its
extremity, and meet in a point; on each side of
the hind part there is a series of brilliantly white
spots, both of which converge towards the
spinners; the sides are thickly mottled with
white; and the underpart has a pale-brown
hue; the reproductive organs are of a dark
reddish-brown colour; and that of the gill-lids is
yellow.

The sexes are similar in colour, but the male,
which is the smaller, has the forearm-joint of
the feelers longer than the elbow-joint, and
slightly curved downwards; the toe-joint has a
reddish-brown hue, and is oval, bombed, and
hairy outside, scooped within, comprising the
feelers, which are moderately developed, very
complicated in structure, and of a dark reddish-
brown colour.

Lycosa piratica frequents marshes and the
margins of pools; it runs rapidly upon the
surface of water even when encumbered with its
cocoon, and frequently takes refuge from danger
beneath the surface of that liquid, concealing
itself among the leaves of aquatic plants, the
air, confined by the circumambient water among
the hairs with which it is clothed, enabling it
to remain immersed for a considerable period of
time.

In June, the female deposits from eighty to
one hundred eggs in a globular cocoon of
compact white silk encircled by a narrow zone of a
slighter texture, which measures about one-fifth
of an inch across.

Such is Mr. Blackwell's description of this
spinning, skating pirate of the pools. As a treat
for those who like them, I string together a few
of the words I have translated: " Cephalothorax,
bifid, falces, sternum, tarsi, annuli, palpi,
digital, and bronchial opercula," &c. When
completed, his work will contain two or three
hundred folio pages of these minute
descriptions.

The silver spider (Argyroneta aquatica) is pre-
eminently the water spider. The skating spiders,
and scorpions (Lycosa and Dolomedes, Hydrachna
and Nepa), red-ticks, and ash-halfwings, ought
to be distinguished from their congeners which
actually live in the water, for their organisation
is very different. The spiders living in the earth
differ from those on it, and the spiders living on
the water from those in it.

The water spiders proper are the least known
of all spiders, not merely to the outer world of
readers, but to the inner world of observers.
Certain small spiders, such as Erigone atra and
Lavignia frontata, living like the Dutch, many
of the French, and not a few of the British
nations, in cold winter lodgings (hybernacula)
which are liable to be inundated, can support
life for many days in the water. They do not
prefer it voluntarily, and are not built to live on
it, or breathe in it, like their congeners who skim
over its surface or dive into its depths. They
have nothing of the organisation of the spiders
who are born and bred in the water. But as
there are fish who can survive being left high
and dry for hours in the crevices of the rocks, or
which have been constructed for ponds becoming
periodically dry, and as there are crabs living
perpetually in wet holes which yet are fitted for
climbing trees in search of the nuts upon which
they feed, there are spiders insured against floods
by the peculiarities of their structure. The proper
water spiders can hold, in the hair of their bodies,
a coating of air to supply their breathing holes
whilst they are under the water, but the flood
spiders have no such faculty, and what they have
instead is one of the secrets of this form of life.
The fishes and crustaceans which can live a long
time out of the water have been found to be
provided with sponge-like apparatus adapted for
keeping their gills moist while exposed to
evaporation.

Mr. Blackwell verified the power of Erigone
atra to remain alive under water by decisive
experiments. On trying to drown this small
spider with a view to measuring it, he was
astonished to find it, after two days immersion,
as lively and vigorous as ever. This occurrence
induced him to submerge a number of specimens
of both sexes in a glass vessel with perpendicular
sides, on the 21st of October, 1832, and
keep them submerged until the 22nd of November,