76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1888. 



published in book form under the title of "The Spiders of the United 

 States," edited by Edward Burgess and with notes by Mr. Emerton.^ 



Hentz had some previous papers of no very great consequence, 

 and in 1835 he published a simple list of 125 species arranged under 

 the gehera to which he supposed that they belonged. This was in 

 the Second Edition of Hitchcock's Report of the Geology of Massa- 

 chusetts, (1835.) An examination of this list shows that it includes 

 a number of the species which Walckenaer described in 1837 from 

 the drawings of Abbot. So far then as the bai-e publication of these 

 names is concerned Hentz has a priority of two years. 



The question of priority involved is yet more complicated by the 

 fact that the second volume of Walckenaer's work, containing many 

 of the American sj)ecies and all the orbweavers, bears a date whose 

 integrity is seriously questioned. The title page gives "1837" as the 

 year of publication, the same as that i-ightly borne by the first vol- 

 ume; but Dr. T. Thorell, who is one of the highest living authorities 

 in Araneology, declares that this volume "did not come out till 

 1841."'^ This fact, however, does not seriously effect the points in 

 issue, as only a few species of the Mygalidae were published by 

 Hentz in 1841;'' all the remaining species were published during 

 and subsequent to 1842. 



The attitude of American students of spider fauna toward Walck- 

 enaer's descriptions alluded to above has been something after the 

 fashionof the famous Scotch verdict "not proven." In other words, 

 in the absence of any types or specimens anywhere existing to which 

 his descriptions might be referre"cl; in the absence of the original 

 drawings from which his descriptions were made, for none (or only 

 one) of them were made from the specimens themselves ; and in the 

 absence of any knowledge as to whether those drawings anywhere 

 existed, it was generally conceded, so far as there was any thought 

 or action on the matter at all, that Walckenaer's descriptions must 

 be considered as non-existent. The priority, therefore, of all the 

 descriptions made by Hentz has been heretofore universally allowed, 

 even thougli some of Walckenaer's descriptions are sufficiently clear 

 to show without the aid of figures that he had in mind the same 

 species covered under different names by Hentz. Dr. McCook be- 

 lieved that on the whole this decision was a righteous one, and that 

 up to this date no claim could have been established in favor of 

 Walckenaer's priority. 



However, a question now arises which it is necessary to face and 

 in some way settle. Does not the discovery of the original drawings 

 in the Zoological Library of the British Museum put an entirely 



' Boston : Boston Society of Natural History, 1875. 



2 Thorell: "On European Spiders," Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sci. Upsaliensis; Scr. 

 3rd, Vol. VII., p. 15, foot note. The text indicates that he knows "with certainty 

 that such date was incorrectly given." 



^ Mygale truncata, so/stitia/is, carolinensis, gracilis and unicolor. See Proc. 

 Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. I, pp. 41-42. 



