SPIDERS tritici, the Red Maggot or Wheat Midge, often proves a great enemy to the farmer. The eggs of this troublesome species are deposited inside the florets of wheat, and the resulting grub does so much damage to the young grains that they do not come to maturity. In 1881 the Wheat Midge was seen swarming in chaff near Knebworth, and its larvae did a consider- able amount of mischief. 1 Another insect very destructive to crops is the Common Daddy Long-legs or Crane Yy(Tipula oleracea which often makes its unwelcome presence known to the Hertfordshire farmer. In 1880 great injury was done at Baldock, where forty acres of wheat were damaged to the extent of quite 100 by the ' Leather Jackets,' as its grubs are commonly called. With the exception of Mr. Rothschild's catalogue of the Pulicidae printed above no list of Hertfordshire Diptera appears to be in existence. Hemiptera and Aphides. Although the common species belonging to both the sub-orders Heteroptera and Homoptera are to be found in the county of Hertford I cannot learn that any naturalist has devoted attention to them. The same remark must be applied to the Aphides. ARACHNIDA Spiders, etc. Greater researches have been made in connection with members of this order in the county of Hertford than perhaps in any other county of England with the exception of Dorset. These have been almost entirely due to the efforts of F. Maule- Campbell, Esq., F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.R.H.S., whose valuable paper on the 'Spiders of the Neighbourhood of Hoddesdon ' was published in 1883 in the Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society. Of the physical character and geological formation of the county with reference to the arachnidal fauna one cannot do better than quote Mr. Campbell's remarks : ' There is in the immediate neighbourhood of Hoddesdon no extent of chalk limestone nor real heath soil, all of which would be desirable from a collector's point of view. We have but gravel and clay-loam. Nor are there any special limits which would make the fauna particularly interesting. The Lea marshes, and the valleys and woods on this side of that river, have no exceptional characteristic, and there can be but little doubt but that all the spiders which are named could be found throughout the Lea district.' Nor can this list be considered a full one, for while 550 and up- wards of species are recorded from England and Wales, 203 species are all that have been placed to the credit of Hertfordshire, besides 2 false- scorpions and i harvestman. Of these the following merit a special notice : Dysdera crocota, Oonops pulcher, Glubiona c<zru/escens, Chiracanthium lapidicolens, Altella spinigera, Centromerus expertus, Hilaira uncata, Linyphia impigra, Araneus a/sine, Meta menardi, Leptorhoptrum hutbivaitii, Plcesiocrczrus permixtus, Entelecara trifrons, Viderius anticus, V. cucullatus and Panamomops bicuspis. By far the greater part of the species recorded are from the neigh- bourhood of Hoddesdon. In cases where the generic or specific name quoted is not that under which the spider has usually been recognized in the works of English authors a note has been added calling attention to the fact. 1 Trans. Herts Nat. Hist. Sac., vol. ii. p. 82. 171
