Savory - Arachnida 1977

266 IV. DE ARACHNOLOGIA
little was known about them, he produced a logical system of the order,
and in addition to many papers summarized his system in a great
monograph "The Arachnid Order Chelonethida" in 1931.
For many years arachnologists the world over looked to Alexander
Petrunkevitch (1875-1964) as the supreme authority on all questions of
arachnid evolution and classification. Born in Russia, he travelled to
America in 1903 and in 1910 joined the University of Yale. His attempts
to compile a satisfactory classification of spiders, his investigation of
extinct fossil species and his later work on spiders in amber were the
chief items in a long life characterized by an incredible daily schedule
of hours in the laboratory, remarkable technical skill and an astonishing
command of about ten European languages. The influence of his
contributions to arachnology will survive for many years to come.
Africa, with its great fauna of conspicuous scorpions and Solifugae,
has always offered boundless opportunities to arachnologists. After a
few casual references to spiders among various descriptions of insects
there appeared in 1825 the well known "Description de l'Egypte" by
]. S. Savigny and V. ]. Audouin. Nine plates, engraved by Savigny,
accompanied descriptions of 29 genera of spiders, together with some
account of other orders. Indeed, the history of both scorpions and
Solifugae makes constant references to the African species; and from
Africa too came in 1838 the recognition of the first of the Ricinulei, the
species which at that time was known as Cryptostemma westermannii.
Most of the study of the African Arachnida has come from the southern
half of the continent. The pioneer work must be credited to W. P.
Purcell (1866-1919),]. Hewitt (1880-) and E. Warren (1871-1935),
all of whom were born in Britain and spent a large part of their lives in
Africa. Employed in the service of different museums, they were the
pioneers of arachnology in Africa.
Here it is impossible to omit mention of a living arachnologist, Dr
R. F. Lawrence. In 1922 he accepted a post in the South African
Museum at Cape Town, where Purcell's large collections were preserved.
In the following years he undertook extensive expeditions to
various parts of the continent, returning, whether from mountain,
forest or desert, with a full harvest of specimens. In 1935 he succeeded
Warren as Director of the Natal ~1useum at Pietermaritzburg, and in
1953 published his impressive volume on "The Cryptic Fauna of
Forests". Lawrence's work has covered almost all the orders of arachnids,
and he must be recognized as having securely laid the foundations
of African arachnology.
In the Near, Middle and Far East, arachnology has made steady if
31. HISTORICAL ARACHNOLOGY 267
unspectacular progress during the present century. In these regions,
as indeed in most parts of the world, its growth has followed the same
course. At first a few curious examples of one order or another have been
rather vaguely mentioned in a book of travels, and from these there
grew some interest in the local fauna. More serious collections were
made, often by explorers or professional collectors, and were brought
home to specialists in Britain, France or Germany. In this way a very
large number of foreign Arachnida were described by zoologists such as
R. I. Pocock (1863-1947), F. H. Graveley (1885- ), vV. R. Sherriffs
(1881- ) and H. R. Hogg (1851-1923).
This period overlaps the later stage of development, when the inhabitants
of a country, provided with museums and universities of their
own, undertook these duties themselves. By progress of this kind there
has grown an increasing concern with Arachnida in India, Palestine,
Malaysia, Japan and elsewhere.
In the Antipodes the study of the spiders of New Zealand began with
a collection made in 1827 during the voyage of the Astolabe. This was
followed during the next 50 years by a small number of other collections,
one of which included the species locally known as the Katipo,
notorious for its poisonous bite. This was a species of Latrodectus, a
relation of the famous black widow.
The true founder of ~ew Zealand arachnology was A. T. Urquhart
(1839-1916), a keen naturalist who made good use of his travels in the
country. His many papers were published between 1882 and 1897, and
together they gave a sound start to the subject. Some years passed
before another took up the study. This was Comte R. de Dalmas ( 1862-
1930). At first he brought his many specimens to Simon for repo~t, but
later he examined and described them himself.
The thorough and systematic description of the Arachnida of New
Zealand, now in the hands of R. R. and L. M. Forster, is of great
significance, since it has shown how the taxonomy of Arachnida has
been handicapped by the fact that all systems have been based on
specimens from the northern hemisphere, to the exclusion of the often
very different fauna of the other half of the world.
The first Arachnida from Australia were briefly mentioned by]. C.
Fabricius in his "Entomologica Systematica" of 1792-96. Subsequent
collections were described by L. Koch and Graf von Keyserling in a
great work of nearly 1,500 pages, "Die Arachnid en Australiens". In
the present century many Australian species were examined by H. R.
Hogg. The first resident in Australia to continue this work was W. ].
Rainbow (1856-1919). Born in Yorkshire, he had lived in New Zealand
and Australia from 1873, and 20 years later became entomologist to the