182 ARACHNIDES. 



secret of the impenetrable emargination, and has the key to 

 those which alone afford an entrance. When her offspring are 

 able to provide for themselves, they leave their native dwelling, 

 to establish elsewhere their individual habitations, while the 

 mother returns to it and dies it is thus her cradle and her 

 tomb." 



Drassus, Walck. 



The Drassi differ from Clotho in several characters. Their che- 

 licerae are robust, projecting and dentated beneath; their jaws are ob- 

 liquely truncated at the extremity, and the ligula forms an inferiorly 

 truncated oval, or an elongated curvilinear triangle; the eyes are 

 nearer to the anterior margin of the thorax, and the line formed by 

 the four posterior ones is longer than the anterior, or extends beyond 

 it on the sides. There is but little difference in the proportions of 

 the fusi, and we do not observe between them the two pectini- 

 form valves peculiar to Clotho. Finally, the fourth pair of legs, 

 and then the first, are manifestly longer than the others. The tibiae 

 and first joint of the tarsi are armed with spines. 



These Spiders live under stones, in the fissures of walls, and on 

 leaves; they construct their cells with an extremely white silk. The 

 cocoons of some are orbicular and flattened, and consist of two valves 

 laid one on the other. M. Walckenaer distributes the Drassi into 

 three families, according to the direction and approximation of the 

 lines formed by the eyes, and the greater or less dilatation of the 

 middle of the jaws. 



The species which he calls viridissimus, Hist, des Aran, fascic. 

 IV, 9, and which alone composes his third division, weaves a 

 fine, white, transparent web on the surface of a leaf; under this 

 web it seeks for shelter. I have sometimes observed a similar 

 web on the leaf of the Pear-tree, but the margin was angular 

 and resembling a tent, like that of the Clotho, beneath which 

 was the cocoon. It is, I presume, the work of this species of 

 Drassus, and proves the analogy of this subgenus with the pre- 

 ceding one. M. Leon Dufour, Ann. des Sc. Phys., VI, xcv, 

 1, has given a very complete description of a species of Dras- 

 sus D. segestriformis found by him under stones in the highest 

 Pyrennees,and never beneath the Alpine region. It is one of the 

 largest of this subgenus, and appears to me to be closely allied 

 to my melctnogaster, which I believe to be the D. lucifugus of 

 Walckenaer, Schaeff. Icon. CI, 7. 



One of the prettiest species, which is very commonly observed 

 running along the ground in the vicinity of Paris, is the D. 

 relucens. It is small, and almost cylindrical, with a fulvous 



