160 ARANEIDEA. 
falces, mawille, and labivm are of a dusky yellowish-brown colour. The underside of the abdomen is 
marked like that of W. prowimus, but with more conspicuous black stripes, and on the upperside is a 
longitudinal, rather tapering, but irregular broken black band reaching through its whole length to the 
spinners, which are of a dusky blackish hue. The prominent humped spiracular plates are less prominent 
than in W. pallidus and of an oval form; the genital aperture is removed further behind them, and is 
of a different form from that of both the foregoing species. The hind-central eyes are rather further 
from each other than each is from the lateral of the same row on its side. 
Hab. Mexico, Teapa in Tabasco (H. H. Smith). 
WITICA*, gen nov. (Epeiridee ?). 
Cephalothoraa short, broad, much dilated behind and quadrate in front; caput large, rather elevated, very 
convex in the occipital region; area of the fore-central eyes prominent. Surface covered with strong 
tubercular granulations. 
Eyes rather large, on strong tubercles, and occupying the whole width of the caput; four centrals in a quad- 
rangle, whose anterior side is rather the shortest, those of each lateral pair are considerably removed on 
either side, and contiguous to each other. 
Falces tolerably long, strong, straight, subconiecal, vertical. 
Mawille short, strong, excessively bent, and almost meeting over the labium. 
Labium short, rather pointed at the apex, or of a somewhat subtriangular form. 
Sternum heart-shaped, drawn out at its hinder extremity, where it is rather broadly and obtusely truncated. 
Legs short, tolerably strong, 1, 2, 4, 3, furnished with hairs and bristles, and one spine on the femora and one 
on the tibice of the first pair of legs. 
Abdomen very short broad-oval, tolerably convex on the upperside, which is covered by a glossy coriaceous 
shield (this, however, may very probably be only a sexual character). 
Witica talis, sp. n. 
Adult male, length 1 line. 
Cephalothorax a little broader than long, the posterior extremity almost squarely truncated, and gradually 
narrowing to the caput, the lateral marginal compressions not being very strong nor abrupt. It is 
of a dark reddish yellow-brown colour, covered with strongish granulosities, each bearing a short bristly 
hair; looked at in profile the caput and thorax form a strong, pretty regular curve. The height of the 
clypeus is equal to the diameter of the fore-central eyes. 
The eyes of the hind-central pair are largest of the eight, the intervals between those of the fore and hinder 
pairs respectively being about equal to an eye’s diameter, and the four form a square, whose fore-side is 
the shortest. Looking at the eyes as in two transverse rows, these are slightly and about equally 
curved, the convexity of the curves directed away from each other. Each hind-central eye is at least two 
diameters distant from the hind-lateral eye on its side. 
The legs are orange-yellow, the tibie and genua of the first and second pairs blackish ; the genua of these two 
pairs are peculiarly formed, being much longer than those of the other legs, strongly and subangularly 
prominent on the outer side, and narrowest at their articulation with the tibie. They are furnished 
with hairs and bristles, some of the latter tolerably coarse, but none of a spinous character, excepting 
one near the inner extremity of the femora of the first pair, and another near the base on the inner side 
of the tibise of the same pair; all the femora are more or less granulose. 
The falces are similar to the legs in colour; they are a little prominent towards their base in front, where they 
are also rather granulose. 
The palpi are very short, the radial joint equal in length to the cubital, but stronger, and dilated forwards ; 
the digital joint is large, and furnished with strong bristles; the palpal organs are complex, well 
developed, and prominent. The palpi are similar in colour to the legs. 
The maville, labium, and sternum are similar to the cephalothorax in colour. 
* Nom. propr.: a Gothic Prelate. 
