ARAOHNIDES— ARANEIDES— ORBITELARI^. 77 



tioiial interest to their discovery. The species are spread all over the globe 

 in both temperate and torrid regions. (November, 1881.) 



At Aix, Gourret found but a single member of this family, whicli he 

 referred to a distinct ffenus called Cercidiella. 



&^ 



^^^r^RAGNATHA LatreiUe. 



This genus has never before been recognized in a fossil state. Alth(jugh 

 represented in every continent, it is only in America and particuhirK' in the 

 warmer parts of North America that it is at all abundant: here some species 

 range north to New England, but it is essentially a genus of the Southern 

 States; these spiders frequent the borders of ponds and hence it is not 

 strange that we should find them in the lake deposits of Florissant, altliough 

 their presence there certainly indicates a warmer climate than the present. 

 The species here described does not appear to have special affinities with 

 the American species with which I have been able to compare it, being 

 stouter bodied than the}'. (November, 1881.) 



Tetragnatha tertiaria. 

 PI. 11, Fig. n{S). 



Tetraijnalha tertiaria .Sciuliler, Ziftcl, Hamlb. d. Paleont., I, ii, 744, Fig. 9'J7 (18«5). 



A single male and its reverse represent the under surface of this spe- 

 cies; as preserved, it is of a pale rusty color, the cephalothoracic append- 

 ages much darker than the abdomen, which is as pale as tlie legs, or than 

 the cephalothorax, which is nearly as pale. The ceplialothorax is circular 

 or scarcely longitudinally oval, the exposed ventral portion between the 

 bases of the mandibles and legs shield-shaped or heart-shaped. The man- 

 dibles are very large, longer than the cephalothorax, broader on the apical 

 than on the basal half and thus formed of two ])arts, a ba.sal, straight, equal 

 piece, as bi*oad as the third or fourth legs and about douljle the length of 

 the coxse, and an apical ovate portion, not unlike the apical joint of the 

 palpi, somewhat longer tlian the basal portion and fully half as broad again 

 as the front legs. Beyond these, and separated from them by a little space, 

 and therefore supported by a long pedicel, which however is not preserved, 

 are the apical palpal joints, a little smaller than the apical portion of the 

 mandibles and of about the same shape, in the interior of which a strongly 

 curved corneous thread can bo made out, iorming more tlian a conqjlete 



