128 ARANEIDEA. 
them to be at once recognized, yet the members of this family pass so readily through 
the Philodromine and blend with those of the Heteropodide and Selenopide, that it 
is not easy to draw any hard-and-fast line between them. The absence of teeth on the 
fang-groove amongst the majority of the Thomiside, which might separate them from 
the Heteropodide, fails, because in the Stephanopsine and Philodromine they are 
present. So, too, does the absence of the scopule beneath the tarsi fail, since they 
are present amongst the Philodromine. ‘he spiders comprised in this family form 
an offshoot of the great two-clawed race of Arachnomorphe, of which the Drasside, 
Clubionide, Heteropodide, Selenopide, and Ctenide are also offshoots, more or less 
divergent. 
So far as the life-habits of the members are concerned, they are vagrant, making 
no web, nor even any kind of tubular retreat, such as is made by the majority of the 
allied families. The species of the Philodromine, most of all resembling those of 
the Heteropodide, run with great swiftness over herbage and the foliage of trees. 
The Misumenine and Stephanopsine also have similar habits, many of them being 
adapted for concealment amongst the petals of flowering plants and shrubs, where they 
lurk and lie in wait for honey-seeking insects, springing upon them suddenly from 
some vantage-point in the corolla. As excellent examples of this habit amongst 
the Thomiside of Europe may be cited the beautiful white and rose-pink tinted 
Thomisus onustus, which lurks amongst the pink heather-blossom, and Miswmena vatia, 
white, with red slashes, frequenting similarly-coloured blossoms in woods and pastures ; 
while very characteristic and of the same habits as the last-named may be noted Epicadus 
heterogaster of the Neotropical Region. This latter has its body (curiously moulded 
into long prominences) and legs apparently formed of white transparent wax, exactly 
imitating the white waxen blossoms amongst which I have myself found the female 
and male together in the forests of the Lower Amazons. 
Other Thomiside are more crab-like, though their habits are very similar: such 
are the various species of Xysticus, Oxyptila, Synema, Tmarus, Stephanopoides, &c. 
Many of these are found indifferently on bare places on the ground, as well as amongst 
the foliage of trees and shrubs. When alarmed they usually gather up their short legs 
round the body or attempt a sidelong retreat in very crab-like fashion. 
There are in reality, as already suggested, no very definite characters distinguishing 
this family from the Heteropodide. In the majority of cases, however, the third and 
fourth pairs of legs are shorter than the first and second pairs; the colulus is either 
absent or very minute; the tarsal claws are two in number, sometimes with a claw-tuft, 
more frequently without; the tarsi and protarsi are much more often entirely devoid of 
scopuliform hairs; the mandibles are without denticles in some subfamilies, in others 
they are present on either one or both margins of the fang-groove; the protarsi are 
without a trilobate membrane at the apex. 
The Thomiside may be more or less conveniently divided into the following 
