24 ARANEIDEA. 
The eyes are very small and in the usual three groups. The four centrals form a square, whose anterior side 
is very slightly the shortest, and its eyes largest, seated on black spots, and very close to the lower 
margin of the clypeus. The laterals are contiguous, seated on a tubercle, and parallel to the lateral 
margin of the caput. 
The falces are short, moderately strong, vertical, and prominent at their base in front. ; 
The legs are of moderate length, not very strong, 1, 4, 2, 3, or 1, 2, 4, 3, furnished with hairs and a few not 
very strong spines. The extremities of the metatarsi and tarsi are tinged with rusty-reddish. 
The abdomen is large, nearly globular, but distinctly broader than long. The upperside and sides are of a 
uniform cretaceous-white. The underside tinged with dull yellowish. The genital process is prominent, 
yellow-brown and dark brown, and of a very characteristic form, presenting a somewhat cruciform shape, 
with a small epigyne directed forwards and upwards. 
The mawille are broad, and the sides appear to be nearly straight, slightly divergent, and angular at their 
extremity on the outer side, and the Jabium is short and of an oval (transverse) form. The form of 
these parts, especially of the mawill, departs so much from that of the generic type that it is questionable 
whether Z. fragilis ought not to form a new genus more nearly allied to Meta. 
Hab. Panama, Bugaba (Champion). 
This little spider bears a very Theridion-like appearance. 
Epeira helvola, sp. n. 
Adult female, length 23 lines; adult male, 2% lines. 
Q. Cephalothorax nearly circular at the thorax, the sides of the caput converging forwards. It is of a yellow- 
brown colour, the oblique indentations between the caput and thorax broadly marked with a darker hue, 
the caput (and perhaps the rest) clothed with grey hairs, and with a pale patch at the occiput. 
The eyes are on black spots and in the usual three groups. Those forming the central group describe a square, 
whose anterior side is slightly the shortest, and the eyes of this side are smaller than those of the posterior 
side; the height of the clypeus is nearly equal to about a third of the facial space. The eyes of each 
lateral pair are seated, a little obliquely, on a tubercle. 
The falces are vertical, and moderate in length and strength, of a yellow-brown colour, a little clouded in front 
with a darker hue. 
The legs are short, moderately strong, 1, 4, 2, 3, of a dull orange-brown colour, indistinctly annulated with a 
darker hue, and armed with hairs and spines. 
The maaille and labium are dull yellowish, and the sternum is yellow-brown, marked with whitish converging 
lines from the insertions of some of the legs to the middle. 
The abdomen is oval, broadest in front; from each shoulder a blackish dentated line, margined outside with 
white, runs backwards, the two converging towards the spinners, but stopping short of them; the space 
included by these lines is of a dark brown or blackish colour finely mottled with paler points, and has a 
diamond-shaped figure formed by white spots at the centre of its fore part, followed backwards by several 
other white spots in a longitudinal row down the middle. The sides are densely marked with small 
white points, and have some irregular blackish markings. The underside, including the spinners, is 
black, mottled down the middle of the anterior portion with whitish points, and with a short curved 
white band ending posteriorly in a white blotch on each side of the fore part, with one or two more white 
spots on each side near the spinners. The genital process is strong, prominent, and characteristic ; it has 
a very slender, sinuously curved, prominent epigyne at its fore part. 
The male has the markings on the cephalothorax more distinct, and (as is usual in this sex) the central part 
of the ocular area is more prominent, and the clypeus narrower. The legs, particularly the first and second 
pairs, are longer and stronger, and the spiny armature more powerful. The greater portion of the femora, 
especially of the first and second pairs, is entirely dark yellow-brown. 
The falces are long, rather weak, and of a dark yellow-brown colour. 
The palpi are short ; the cubital joints have a short, black, strongish, cylindrical spine or bristle in front at 
the fore extremity (I should have thought that these might have been long tapering bristles broken off, 
but for their both being exactly of the same length and not appearing to have been fractured). The 
