BRITISH SPIDERS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION 

9

Without claiming to have made any exhaustive search of the foreign 

literature I have provided a fairly comprehensive list of the countries 

in which our British species are known. What we see is a gradual 

reduction in their numbers as we travel away from Britain eastward, 

northward and southward. Unfortunately the extent of this progressive 

reduction is magnified by a parallel diminution in our knowledge of 

the spider faunas of the respective countries. The approximate number 

of British species known in different countries abroad is indicated 

below: 

France, 494: Belgium, Holland and Germany combined, 453: 

Denmark, 373; Switzerland, 399; Austria, Hungary and 

Czechoslovakia, 410; Norway and Sweden combined, 280; Iceland, 

59 out of a total of 65; Greenland, 17 out of a total of 50; Spitsbergen, 

6 out of a total of 14;

Spain, Portugal and Majorca, 217; Italy, 240; the 

Balkans, 200; N. Africa, 130; Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands 

combined, 52; Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Iraq combined, 80; 

European Russia, 322; Asiatic Russia, 202 (of which 90 extend to the 

eastern coast in Kamtschatka, Amur and the Maritime Provinces); 

China, 44; Japan, 30; N. America, 79. 

In this review we follow the distribution of British species abroad 

down to a latitude of 30 . If we pursue our search beyond this we find 

they disappear entirely in the tropical regions of America, Africa and 

Asia except for the species which survive in Britain solely in hot 

houses. On arrival in the temperate regions of the Southern 

hemisphere a few British species reappear   2 or 3 in S. America, 6 in 

S. Africa, 4 in S. Australia and 8 in New Zealand. 

Synonyms in brackets refer to the names employed by O. P. 

Cambridge in his 1900 list.* References to subsequent additions are 

added. 

*Foreign arachnologists should take special note of this. When they find that 

Enoplognatha caricis 

Fick and 

Hilaira montigena

 L.K., for instance, are cited as synonyms of 

E

.

 schaufussi 

L.K. and 

H

.

 frigida 

Thor. respectively, this is not intended to suggest that the 

species are identical. It merely records the fact that in the 1900 list such species were so 

named.