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Show 1873.] GENERA AND SPECIES OF ARANEIDEA. 113 the Micros of the Exotic Articulata are less worth the trouble of collecting than the Macros. It arises, I suppose, chiefly from the comparatively unmarketable nature of the former; at any rate the consequence is that almost every collector crams his boxes or his bottles with the larger species, many of which we receive over and over again, usque ad nauseam, simply because they are large or brightly coloured. If one were to judge, in regard to Spiders, from the collec-tionsreceived from professional or regular collectors in tropical regions, it might be thought that there were there few or none of those very minute Spiders such as we find to be the staple of our temperate climates. In the collection, however, received from Ceylon, through the kindness of Mr. G.H. K. Thwaites, this idea is abundantly dispelled. Hundreds, I may say, of the species in these collections are exceedingly minute, and all of them of the greatest interest. Some of them, such as those here described, Tetrablemma, Phoroncidia, and Stego-soma, with others described in P. Z. S. Nov. 1870, are among the most remarkable forms known, while numerous others of equal interest yet remain to be described. The reason why Mr. Thwaites's collections are thus rich in the Micro-Araneae is not (I feel sure) because Ceylon is more prolific than other tropical parts, but simply because the collections were made by "non-collectors." A "collector" turns over debris, or bark, or stones, or beats bushes and trees, and then picks and chooses according to what he thinks is most striking at the moment, or only what he believes to be different from what he has secured before, or perhaps what will sell best; and often (among Spiders) he sets down most of the small specimens as immature examples of larger ones ; and thus while he is securing a few of the large and gaily coloured individuals, the thousand minute ones escape. The " non-collector," on the contrary, especially if he is a " native," secures every thing he can lay his fingers upon, regardless of form, size, or colour, or whether he has already obtained examples of the same or not. To this solely I attribute the richness of the collections received from Ceylon. They were made by one or two of the native workmen in the Royal Botanic Gardens during their leisure hours. These men appear to have followed implicitly the instructions impressed upon them by Mr. Thwaites, and to have bottled, mostly in the gardens themselves, every thing in the shape of a Spider that they could find. The consequence is that there are, as one might expect, numerous examples of some few common species ; but at the same time there are numbers of minute rarities which we should never have got had not the collectors bottled, indiscriminately, every thing that their search laid bare. For discovering the articulated treasures of a tropical district, commend me to a few active and intelligent " natives," who will very soon produce the largest part of what the district holds; while a " collector," with a fancied (but often an imperfect) knowledge of species, picks and chooses, and lets go a hundred novelties while he is securing a few probably already well-known forms. All, except two, of the Spiders described in the present paper are PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1873, No. VIIL 8 |