THE SPIDERS OF EPPING FOREST.
By FRANK P. SMITH.
Part I.
Influenced by the memories of many pleasant days spent
within the leafy glades and upon the sunny heaths of Epping
Forest, it is with something like a sense of duty that I enter
upon the task of compiling a descriptive list of the spiders
indigenous to this lovely district. I need in no wise eulogise
upon the natural beauties of the Forest, for they must be familiar
to every resident in the northern portion of the Metropolis, and,
for the benefit of the stranger, we have more than one good guide-
book dealing with the attractions of the neighbourhood. We
constantly hear it remarked that for certain groups of insects the
Forest is not so remunerative a locality as it used to be ; but we
must admit that it would be an absolute impossibility for a well-
studied order, such, for example, as the Lepidoptera, to hold its
own in a collecting ground within so short a distance of the
Metropolis. In many parts of the Forest, too, the London-clay,
with its somewhat limited flora, comes to the surface, thus tend-
ing to decrease the variety of insect life in those localities.
To-day, however, in spite of the attentions of energetic collectors
and the depredations of thoughtless excursionists, this district
may be relied upon to furnish treasures innumerable for the
earnest student of nature who is willing to enter upon the task
of investigating those orders of the animal kingdom which have
been for one reason or another more or less neglected. Foremost
amongst these must be placed the Araneae, or Spiders, with
which I wish to deal in the present series of papers. The list of
species as it now stands, although in many respects a good one,
will no doubt be materially augmented by further search, and it
is hoped that these notes may not be regarded as "something
attempted, something done," but rather as an incentive to the
enterprising collector to avail himself of every opportunity of
gathering specimens of spiders in this interesting locality.1 I am
confident that one of the greatest obstacles to the advancement of
British Araneology is the lack of up-to-date literature in the
1 The previous papers on Spiders in our publications are only two in number, viz. : "A
contribution towards a knowledge of the Arachnida of Epping Forest" by the Rev. O. Pick-
ard-Cambridge (Trans. E. F. Club, Vol. iv., pp. 41-40) and "Further contributions" on the
same subject, by F. O. Pickard-Cambridge, Essex Nat., vol. xi. pp. 313-318. Ed.