Britain’s Spiders is one of the WILD Guides series of field guides from Princeton University Press. There are many other titles in the series dealing with the wildlife of the British Isles, some of which have been reviewed in these columns. A little searching also indicates there are other WILD Guides dealing with wildlife across the world, plus some more general natural history books, including a field guide to dinosaurs! Reviewing this book and being aware of the series led me to think back over the field guides I have used. I stated with the Observer Books and moved on to the Collins Guides. Later for plants, there was CTW and for invertebrates there were Field Studies Council monographs. The cost reduction of colour printing and the ease of page layout with a computer have made the new, highly illustrated, guides like those from WILD Guides possible. This volume has been written by three members of the Council of the British Arachnological Society.
The book starts by distinguishing Aranea (true spiders) from other Arachnida, then the wider level spiders from insects, and then, at the closer, spiders from harvestmen ending with a long-legged spider, a long-legged harvestman and a crane fly (or daddy long legs in common English). Having solved the problem of not confusing anything else with spiders, we get an outline of spider surface anatomy using the Large House Spider as model. This is followed by a glossary and an account of the features used in the text to describe spiders in the identification.
A general discussion of aspects of spider biology, including webs, courtship and mating, egg sacs and early development, dispersal, food capture and feeding and a little about the myth and reality of spider bites, follows. As spiders have never been a major part of the biology I have been involved with, it was a surprise and an education to find out how varied they are in their biology. An introduction to field work discuses finding spiders, capturing them, examining them, which in many cases requires a 10× magnifying instrument and in some case a more powerful microscope (a little icon in the detailed description tells you which viewing tool you need, including the unaided eye for the larger ones).
We can now start identifying spiders down to family level on the basis of number and spacing of eyes and the general anatomy. This is followed by the identification of web forms which are often specific to families, and there is a guide to egg sacs. The various broad identifiers are referenced to the families and under the families each genus is dealt with species by species. For each, we get the Latin name and English name, where there is one (Victorian biologists often gave species a common name to help popularise natural history). Observational tips are provided which indicate where to find a particular species. There is a description which covers identifying features. Similar species are listed, to help avoid misidentification. Finally, distribution is shown using a small map together with an activity calendar. The latter indicates the months you are likely to find the males and females. There are also photographs of spiders and of particular bits of them that are important for identification.
The pictures are excellent and well worth looking at even if you are not going spider observing. In all, 395 species are covered. There are around 670 spider species in the UK; those excluded are the ones like the money spiders that are difficult to distinguish without powerful microscopy. There is a full list of species towards the end of the book. There is also a brief account of relevant legislation and conservation measures. Like all invertebrates, there are now fewer spiders than there were even a few years ago. The book is packed with information – in the full sense; there are map colourations and IUCN codes and sex symbols together with a ruler on the front-end flap, and a short index to family identification pages on the back flap. There is also a reading list, plus, of course, a note of some relevant “web” sites!
