THANATUS.—SPHEROBOTHRIA. 89 
The legs are moderately long, apparently 2, 1, 3, 4, rather slender, yellow, thickly spotted on the uppersides 
and in front, especially those of the first and second pairs, with small red-brown and black spots. The 
difference in length between 1, 3, and 4 is very slight. They are armed with spines on the femora, tibie, 
and metatarsi, those beneath the tibiz and metatarsi being long and arranged in pairs. There is no scopula 
beneath the tarsi. 
The falces are moderately long and strong, straight, similar in colour to the cephalothorax, and with a few 
similar spots in front. 
The palpi are similar to the legs in colour and markings. 
The maxille, labium, and sternum are yellow. 
The abdomen is elongate-oval, of a dull luteous colour, thickly covered with, mostly coalescing, cretaceous spots, 
and much marked and spotted on the upper part and sides with dark chocolate-brown ; these markings form 
a kind of diffused broad longitudinal band on each side of the median line, broken into somewhat oblique 
bars towards the hinder extremity. The genital aperture is small but of characteristic form. The abdo- 
men is very thinly clothed with pale pubescence and a few short bristly hairs. 
This spider is very nearly allied to Z%bellus, but on the whole comes, probably, more naturally into the genus 
Thanatus. 
Hab. Guatemata, Chiacam in Vera Paz (Sarg). 
In his notes, Mr. Sarg speaks of this spider as having the ground-colour of the 
abdomen “ pinkish-white.” The pink tinge has, however, disappeared by preservation 
in spirit of wine. 
SPHA.ROBOTHRIA, Karsch. 
Spherobothria hoffmanni. 
Spharobothria hoffmannii, Karsch, Zeitschr. ges. Nat. lil. p. 536, t. 7. figg. 1, 2 (1879). 
Adult female, length 20 lines; adult male, length 15 lines. 
The cephalothorax is a little longer than broad, truncate in front, and moderately convex above. The caput 
does not rise much nor abruptly from the thoracic level, and the normal indentations are fairly but not 
very strongly marked. The thoracic indentation is circular and filled up by a kind of chitinous plug of 
a subconical form. (This is a most remarkable and conspicuous feature, and had determined me to base 
a new genus upon it, before I was aware that it had been so dealt with by Dr. Karsch.) The cephalothorax 
is of a dull yellow-brown colour, clothed with coarse grey-brown pubescence. 
The eyes are small, seated on a small oval hump or eye-eminence close to the fore margin of the caput. Those 
of the anterior row, which run in a straight line transversely over the hump, are separated by equal 
intervals, and its laterals are apparently a little the largest ; behind each of the central eyes of this row, and 
nearly ina line between it and the hind lateral eye, is an eye of the hind central pair, which are very small. 
The eyes may therefore be described as in two small groups forming nearly an equilateral triangle at each 
end of the eye-eminence, from which also some coarse reddish-brown bristles are directed forwards. 
The legs are moderately long, strong, 4, 1, 2, 3, similar in colour to the cephalothorax ; clothed with similar 
pubescence and long coarse hairs and bristles, some of which have a dull reddish hue, There are a tew 
small spines on the tibie and metatarsi (strongest and most conspicuous in the male); and the tarsi and 
metatarsi have a dense scopula beneath them, reflecting metallic hues ; this scopula, however, only extends 
about halfway along the metatarsi of the fourth pair. 
The palpi are rather long, strong, leg-like, similar in colour to the legs; the digital joint (of the 9) has a 
dense scopula beneath. 
The falces are strong, prominent, and arched in profile. They are similar in colour to the cephalothorax, and 
clothed with pubescence and coarse bristles like the legs. 
The mawille are long, divergent, nearly cylindrical, with a small projecting point at their extremity on the 
inner side. Labium short, broad, truncated at the apex, which is nearly as broad as the base, 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Arach. Aran., April 1892, Nt 
