TRANSACTIONS THE
DISTRIBUTION
OF SOME SPIDERS
E R I C DUFFEY, B . S C . ,
RARE
BRECKLAND
PH.D.
(Monks Wood Experimental Station) THE Norfolk and Suffolk Breckland is a distinctive geographical region well known for the occurrence of certain rare plants and animals adapted to the peculiar soil and habitat conditions. A good deal of Information has been published about the plants and birds of the Breckland heaths but comparatively little is known about the invertebrate fauna apart from a few distinctive and rare insects. In particular no investigation has been made of invertebrate ecology in the special habitat conditions on these sandy heaths and how this compares with similar habitats elsewhere, such as coastal dunes and dry heaths in southern England. The following notes about six species of Spider have been extracted from a field study of the invertebrate fauna of Breckland grass heath by the Conservation Research Section of Monks Wood Experimental Station during 1963 and 1964. All the species live in ground Vegetation, some associated with stony or sandy areas with little plant life and others with the dense turf or heather which has now developed on many grass heaths since the decline in the number of rabbits following myxomatosis. The nature of the Vegetation change on the Breck since myxomatosis has not been adequately described for the region as a whole but some indication of the trends as recorded at Horn and Weather Heath may be found in Thomas (1960, 1963). Faunal notes on insects recorded from the Breck have been published from time to time in the Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. and Trans. Norf. Norw. Nat. Soc. Duffey, Locket and Millidge (1957) discuss some of the more interesting Breck spiders and references to the distribution and habitat elsewhere of a few species will be found in Duffey and Millidge (1954) and Lampel (1959). The figures in parenthesis which follow the counties in the species accounts refer to the vice-county numbers.