148 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



apex ; this is flanked on either side by well shaded margins of dark color. This pattern 

 sliows much more distinctly on some specimens than others and tends to be obliterated 

 with advancing age. (See Plate II., Fig. 4.) The venter has a wide, black subtriangular patch 

 surrounded by a broad yellow margin, presenting the appearance of a military chapeau, 

 sometimes interrupted, leaving but two large circular spots on either side. The spinnerets 

 are bright orange or brown with an interrupted girdle of yellow, one large patch on each 

 side forward of the base. The epigynum (Plate I., Figs. 7a, 7b) has a strong curved scapus 

 almost as wide as the atriolum at its base, where the color is yellow or orange yellow ; it is 

 compressed about the middle and widened info a spooned bowl ; it is furrowed on either 

 side with a hard blackish brown rim almost to the base. 



Male: Plate I., 7c; Plate II., h. The male resembles in color the female, though there is 

 a tendency to lighter hues. The body is provided with the same long, strong, whitish bristles 

 and hairs that mark the female. These are often strong on the eyebrows and the margin 

 of the cephalothorax, and they form decided brushes upon the palpal joints. The tibia of 

 the second leg is curved outward and provided on the inner and under side with a double 

 row of short toothlike spines extending the entire length, flanked on one side by a single 

 row, the long si)ines making a formidable clasping apparatus. 



DisTRiBiTiON : This is one of the most common of our American species and is widely 

 and probably generally distributed throughout the United States. I have specimens ranging 

 from New England to Florida along the Atlantic Coast, and as far west as California. 

 I have taken it in Portland, Oregon, and Dr. Marx reports it from Nebraska, Texas, Utah, 

 in Colorado at a height of twelve hundred feet, in Minnesota,, and at various points along 

 the Atlantic Coast. 



No. 8. Epeira arabesca Walckenaer. Plate I., Figs. 8, 8a. ; PI. II., Figs. 6, 7. 



1805. Epeira arabegca, Walckenaer . . Tableau des Araign(5es, p. 63, No. 44. 



1837. Epeira arabesca, Walckenaer . . Ins. Apt., ii., p. 74 ; Abbot, G. S., Nos. 331, 346. 



1837. Epeira mnlahilis, Walckenaer . Ins. Apt., ii., p. 73, No. 58, in part; Abbot, G. S., 



No. 355. 



1864. Epeira trivlKala, Keyserling . . Beschr. n. Orbit., Isis, p. 95, 6-9. 



1884. Epeira triritlata, Emerton . . . . N. E. Ep., p. 311, xxxiii., 16; xxxvi., 2, 3, 5, 8. 



1888. Epeira arabegca, IMiCooK .... Proceed. Acad. Nat. Sc, Phila., p. 3. 



1889. Epeira trieitUitu, McCooK .... Amer. Sjjid. and their Spinningwork, Vol. I. 

 1889. Epeira arabesca, Marx Catalogue, in loc. 



1892. Epeira Iririltata, Keyserling . . Spinn. Amerik., p. 172, pi. viii., 127. 



Female : Body length varies from 6 to 8 mm. ; cephalothorax, 2.5 mm. long, 2 mm. 

 wide ; abdomen, 5 mm. long, 4 mm. wide at the base, narrowing much at the apex. Like 

 Epeira Benjamina, which tlus species resembles in many respects, the general color varies 

 from reddish brown to yellow. 



Cephalothorax: Cordate, elevated at the centre, sloping abruptly to the indented base; 

 the fosse a longitudinal slit ; corselet grooves and cephalic suture distinct ; color yellow to 

 orange yellow or brown; freely covered with yellowish white hairs, especially on the sides 

 of the caput, which form strong eyebrows at the side; the head depressed, sloping to the 

 face; sternum shield shaped, somewhat longer than wide, sternal cones distinct; pubescent 

 edges brown, with broad median yellow band upon the middle; lip low, obtusely triangu- 

 lar; maxillse about as wide as long, obtusely triangular at the tips; labium and maxillre 

 yellow. 



Eyes : Ocular quad upon an eminence projecting in front, leaving MR scarcely elevated 

 above the facial surface ; the front somewhat longer than the rear, and the sides longer 

 than either; the eyes about equal in size, though MR apjtear .slightly larger; MF separated 

 by about 1.3 diameter; MR by about a radius; eyes upon tubercles, barely contingent; SF 

 larger than MF, and separated by about a little more than the area of the former, or 1.5 times 



