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Britisb Ibi^bracbnib^. 



By Charles D. Soar. Part V. Plate XII. 



IN our last paper we considered the genus Nescea. We will now 

 turn our attention to Fiona, a genus very closely allied to it. 

 C. L. Koch, in his Deutschla^ids Crustaceans, etc., does not 

 mention this genus; but in his Ubersicht, 1842, he separates five 

 species from the genus Nescea (in which genus he had previously 

 described them), and places them in a new genus, which he named 

 Fiona. The five species so separated from the Nescea were Fiona 

 ovaia, F. rufa, F. viridis, F. affinis, and F. fasciata, making F. 

 ovata his type specimen. In 1879, Neuman put one species 

 {P. viridis) back again into its old place, and in his Stvedish 

 Hydrachnider he also gives and describes this genus, adding five 

 more species to the list already given— namely, Fiona fusca, 

 F. mira, F. flavescens, F. la.pponica, and F. abnormis ; but at the 

 same time he expresses a doubt as to the propriety of the classifi- 

 cation of all these species under one genus. 



Neuman, however, appears to think that Koch had not suffi- 

 cient data to warrant him in creating this new genus. I here give 

 a translation from Neuman's work, Sivedish Hydrachnider, 1879, 

 p. 51, so that readers may see for themselves what he says : — 



" In my account of the spiders and ' water-mites ' of Gothland 

 and Bland, I mentioned that I had long felt doubtful as to the 

 propriety of classifying the species here in question under a sepa- 

 rate genus, as they should perhaps more appropriately be brought 

 under the head of Nescea. As defined by Koch, the genus Fiona 

 — differing from Nescea by the unequal distribution of the so-called 

 * dorsal stigmata ' (or spots), and the absence of teeth on the 

 fourth joint of the palpus only— does not appear to have any 

 raison d'etre. As regards the insubstantiality or incorrectness of 

 making the said dorsal spots a basis of generic division, I have 

 already expressed my opinion. The absence of teeth on the 

 feelers might appear a better mark of distinction, but for the fact 

 that it so happens that certain species of Nescea have such small 

 feeler teeth as to be imperceptible except when very strongly 

 magnified, and that Fiona abnormis is likewise provided with 



