British Arachnological Society
The Newsletter
No. 96
March 2OO3
Annual General Meeting and Field Weekend
Based at Plas Tan-y-Bwlch, North Wales
14th-16th June 2002
by Richard Gallon
The short drive from Llandudno to Plas Tan-y-Bwlch Field
Centre did not augur well for the rest of the B.A.S. field
weekend. Unrelenting torrential rain accompanied me for
most of the journey as I made my way south through the
slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Blaenau has a
reputation in North Wales for its precipitation—its vast
slate slag heaps doing little to improve the picture on a
rainy overcast afternoon.
As I pulled into the Centre's car park, I could see several
cars sporting arachnid-related car-stickers in their windows. Through the rain-smeared car-window I saw Peter
Merrett hurrying towards the main building. I unloaded
my equipment and established myself in my room.
Making my way down the substantial wooden stairs
I encountered a small crowd loitering at the bottom.
I didn't recognise any of the faces, but hedged my bets
and queried 'spider people?' Fortunately they were! Faces
were quickly put to names I'd only previously seen in
B.A.S. literature.
Later that evening everybody assembled in a large panelled room, situated conveniently near the dining room
and bar. Martin Askins gave a quick introduction to the
event, followed by my presentation on the sites we
intended to survey over the coming weekend. With the
recent publication of the Provisional Atlas of British Spiders
it was possible to highlight species worth looking for in
our fieldwork. I also drew attention to some of the regional specialities and presented species lists and habitat
descriptions of sites we were to visit. The take-home
message was that all the sites had the potential to yield
interesting species.
The second presentation of the evening was by Tony
Russell-Smith, focusing on spider recording in Kent.
Sites such as Dungeness, Sandwich and Blean Woods
were all highlighted as rarity hotspots, containing species that the northern arachnologist could only dream
about encountering.
After a welcome cooked breakfast on the Saturday
morning, the bulk of the group piled into one of the Centre's minibuses and headed south. Our destination was
Morfa Dyffryn SSSI (part NNR) an extensive, underrecorded sand-dune system on the Merionethshire coast.
Fortunately the weather had changed significantly since
our arrival at the Centre the day before. Everybody
marched off in differentt directions to seek out promising
looking parts of the dunes to sample. I headed north, my
target being a dune slack marked on the Ordnance Survey map. After several sampling stops on the way, my
destination was marked by swaths of red Marsh Orchids
Figure 1. Dune slack at Morfa Dyffryn.
(Fig. 1). One of these orchids was distinctly different from
the others with a larger, paler-pink flower head. As I went
to photograph it I noticed a £1 coin resting beside it:
clearly somebody else had photographed this specimen
before me and had forgotten to pick up their scale! Slightly
richer I made my way back to the car park where everybody was eating their lunch and recounting their discoveries (Fig. 2, overleaf).
Once everybody had eaten, we clambered aboard the
minibus bound for Coed Lletywalter NNR, one of many
Atlantic Oak-woodlands found in the region. These are
typified by a mild climate and high humidity and, as a
result, their bryophyte and lichen floras are particularly
rich. To the best of my knowledge there were no previous spider records from this NNR, so this visit was to
break new ground. Many people set to work sieving leaf
litter (mainly ash, beech and oak), whilst others deployed
beating trays and sweep-nets to good effect. Some also
investigated the Sphagnum in the carr woodland which
fringed the dammed lake.
Later in the afternoon we returned to the Centre and
freshened up for the evening's events. Strawberries featured heavily in the evening meal once again—somebody
even found one in the meat pie! I had stayed at Plas Tany-BwIch before, back in my school days, and it was good
to see the food was still of the same high standard.
Dinner was followed by two presentations. Paul Selden
gave a well-illustrated talk on his recent trip to Brazil.
There were some wonderful slides of exquisitely preserved
fossil spiders. A particularly interesting observation was
that a species of extant diplurid was found living amongst
rocks containing their fossilised cousins. The second talk
of the evening was by Peter Harvey. Peter outlined his
thoughts on how the Spider Recording Scheme should
develop now that the Atlas had been produced. Key points
were that a new recording card would be produced and
Newsl. Br. arachnol. Soc. 96
Origin and Gender of the Name Sabacon
Simon, 1879 (Opiliones, Palpatores,
Ischyropsalidoidea)
by Jiirgen Grubcr
The generic name Sabacon was introduced by Eugene
Simon in his Arachnides de France, tome septieme
(1879a, p. 266), for a new genus in the family
Ischyropsalidae, containing the single species Sabacon
paradoxus, which was based on juvenile specimens from
southern France. The author did not provide an explanation for this new name, though he did so for three
other new generic names in Opiliones (Simon, 1879b,
p. 72 for Rhampsinitus ('nom propre'), p. 73 for
Pantopsalis (a descriptive name), p. 74 for Toracus ('nom
propre' again)). The lack of an etymology seems to have
caused some uncertainty concerning the correct gender
of Sabacon in subsequent literature.
Parker (1982) tried to give a 'descriptive' meaning to
the name: Greek 'sa' = healthy looking, sound; 'baca' =
berry shaped. The sense of this etymology remains
obscure and the result remained unconvincing, as do many
attempts to impute a descriptive meaning into names. In
his subsequent publications, Simon (1881, 1907, 1911)
consistently considered Sabacon to be of masculine gender; also Weed (1893: Sabacon spinosus) and Roewer
(1914). In Roewer (1923, p. 695) we find: 'S. pamdoxum
Simon (emend.)', so this emendation dates from 1923
and not from 1914 (contra Shear, 1975). Most later authors seem to have followed Roewer and generally used
the name as a word with neuter gender, seemingly in
parallel with other words of Greek origin ending in '-on'
(with some inconsistencies, e.g. in Dresco 1952:
'paradoxum' and 'uizcayanus'!).
However, it seems unlikely that Simon was ignorant
about the origin and correct use of the names introduced
by himself.
Consultation of Dr. W. Rape's Worterbuch der
griechischen Eigennamen, 3. Auflage, neu bearbeitet
von D. G. E. Benseler (1875) snowed that 'Sabakon'
(transliteration from Greek!) was listed as a king of Egypt
in the 25th dynasty; more extensive Internet research
revealed more information: Shabaka (or Shabatka), also
known as Sabacon, king of Cush, conquered Egypt and
founded the 25th dynasty, reigning from 712 to 698 BC.
The third, and last, pharaoh of the 25th dynasty was
Taharqa or Taracus—here is another of Simon's
harvestman names! Seemingly Simon was at this time
interested in Egyptian history, as also the genus name
Rhampsinitus suggests—another king of Egypt
(Rameses), well known for his wealth. As Lucien Berland
(1925, p. 78) remarked 'il [Simon] s'interessait aussi a
bien d'autres sujets et en particulier a 1'Histoire, sur laquelle
il avait une grande erudition'.
Use of proper names from classical antiquity, be it those
of historical persons or more often of mythological figures like gods, heroes, nymphs . . . was quite common
among zoologists of the nineteenth century: one has only
to consider the many names of marine worms or molluscs, or of butterflies.
Consequently, Simon was quite right in ascribing masculine gender to the genus name Sabacon. Simon was
right, and Roewer in error—once again!
References
Berland, L. (1925) Notice necrologique sur Eugene Simon. Annls
Soc. ent. Fr. 94 (1925): 73-100, portrait.
Dresco, E. (1952) Etude du genre Sabacon (Opiliones). Annls Soc.
enl.fr. 121: 117-126.
Parker, J. R. (1982) What's in a name? - The Harvestmen. Newsl.
Br. arachnol. Soc. 33: 1-2.
Roewer, C. F. (1914) Die Familien der Ischyropsalidae und
Nemastomatidae der Opiliones-Palpatores. Arch, fur
Naturgesch. 80A (3): 99-169.
Roewer, C. F. (1923) Die Weberknechte der Erde. Systematische
Bearbeitung der bisher bekannten Opiliones. Fischer, Jena.
Shear, W. A. (1975) The opilionid genera Sabacon and
Tomicomerus in America (Opiliones, Troguloidea,
Ischyropsalidae). J. Arachnol. 3: 5-29.
Simon, E. (1879a) Les Arachnides de France. Tome septieme,
contenant les Ordres des Chernetes, Scorpiones et
Opiliones. Roret, Paris.
Simon, E. (1879b) Description d'Opiliones nouveaux. Annls Soc.
ent. Belg. 1879: 70-75.
Simon, E. (1881) Arachnides nouveaux ou peu connus des Provinces Basques. An. Soc. esp. Hist. not. 10: 127-182.
Simon, E. (1907) Biospeologica III. Araneae, Chernetes et Opiliones
(Premiere Serie). Archs Zool exp. gen. (4) 6(9): 537-553.
Simon, E. (1911) Biospeologica XXIII. Araneae et Opiliones
(Troisieme Serie). Archs Zool. exp. gen. (5) 9(2): 177-206.
Weed, C. M. (1893) An American species of Sabacon. Am. Nat.
27(318): 574-576.
Naturhistorisches Museum, 3. Zoologische Abteilung, P.O.B. 417,
Burgring 7, A-1014 WIEN, Austria
ARACHNOLOGICAL HISTORY
One Hundred Years of Arachnology in
Cumbria, with Memories of Harry Britten
(1870-1954)
by John Rowland Parker
Very little had been published on the spiders of Cumbria
prior to 1901 when the Revd Frederick Octavius PickardCambridge of Warmwell in Dorset, educated at Sherborne
School and Oxford University, became curate at St
Cuthbert's Church in Carlisle. He had collected and identified spiders with the aid of John Blackwall's Spiders of
Great Britain and Ireland (1860-64) and the publications of his uncle, the Revd Octavius Pickard-Cambridge,
including his Spiders of Dorset (1879, 1881). F. O.
Pickard-Cambridge revised the genera and added some
species to the British list to bring this up to 212 species,
published in the Victoria County History of Cumberland
in 1901.
Prior to this, Dr A. Randell Jackson had spent a number
of autumn holidays in the Lake District when he collected
spiders, and F. O. Pickard-Cambridge was able to include
all of Jackson's records.
Harry Britten was born in 1870. His parents had come
to live at Langwathby near Penrith when his father became
gamekeeper for Mr E. W. Parker of Skirwith Abbey.
The big house was a replacement for a much earlier foundation by the Knights Templar dating back to the thirteenth century. Young Harry's first employment after leaving school was as pantry boy at Skirwith Abbey. The
Parkers of Skirwith originated from the early branches of
the writer's family who had been tenant and statesmen
farmers in the Petteril valley, between Carlisle and Penrith,
for over three hundred years going back to the middle of
the sixteenth century. It was then usual for the eldest son
to inherit the farm from his parents and any other sons
had to seek employment elsewhere. One of these early
great-grandparents of mine had left his parents' farm at
Hesket-in-the-Forest and had gone to Manchester at the
time of the great cotton boom early in the nineteenth
century. His success was such that he was joined by two