128 ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE FAUNA. 
the sharply circumscribed suborder of the Mygalomorphe. The mutual affinities of 
the genera and families of this group are sufficiently well understood for the purpose, 
and from the geographical standpoint it has the additional advantage of being, so far 
as we know, dependent upon continuous land-areas for its dispersal, since the species 
appear—for the most part, at all events—to be independent of the method of travelling 
commonly known as “ballooning,” which the young of many of the families of 
Arachnomorphe have been ascertained to practise shortly after dispersing from the 
cocoon. As has been suggested above (p. 119), the very wide, sometimes cosmopolitan 
distribution of some genera may perhaps be assigned to this cause, coupled with 
exceptional power of adaptation to highly varied conditions. 
The Central American representatives of the Mygalomorphe were referred by 
Mr. F. Cambridge to the three families, Ctenizide, Dipluride, and Theraphoside. 
This classification will be here adhered to in the main as sufficiently exact for the 
purpose in hand. 
The first subfamily of the Ctenizide, the Actinopodine, is represented by the two 
genera, Actinopus and Neocteniza. The latter has only been recorded from Guatemala 
and Demerara. The former is abundant all over South America from the Argentine 
northwards to Venezuela, and enters Central America at Panama. Perhaps it awaits 
discovery in other tropical districts of Central America. It is interesting to record that 
_ the only other representative of this subfamily is the Australian genus Missulena 
(Eriodon). 
The genera of the second subfamily, the Ctenizine, are referred to three sections, 
the Pachylomeree, the Ctenizew, and the Cyrtaucheniee. From the first of these 
should certainly be dismembered the genus Chorizops as the type of a very special 
group, the Cyclocosmee or Halonoproctee. This group contains the three genera: 
Chorizops recorded from Mexico (Guanajuato, Vera Cruz), Cyclocosmia from Alabama, 
and Halonoproctus from China. 
The Pachylomerez comprises three genera: Conothele ranging from Burma to the 
Solomon Islands, Hebestatis from California, and Pachylomerus itself. This genus has 
a remarkably discontinuous distribution. Several species occur in the Southern States 
of North America, in Central America from Mexico southwards to Guatemala and 
Costa Rica, and a few in the West Indies (Jamaica, St. Vincent). In the Old World 
it js met with in Japan, but, singularly enough, elsewhere only in the western 
Mediterranean (Spain, Algeria). 
The genus Bothriocyrtum, the sole Central American representative of the Ctenizex, 
has one Mexican and one Californian species. Its nearest ally is Cyrtocarenum of the 
Mediterranean area. All the other genera of the Ctenizee are Old World forms, two, 
in addition to Cyrtocarenum, being Mediterranean, one South African, one Central 
Asian, and one Japanese and Chinese, 
