248 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



apex, quite around to the spinnerets ; on either side is an indistinct folium of yellowish 

 brown, the margins of which are slightly indented ; the dorsal surface is reticulated. The 

 ventral pattern is a long band of yellowish brown, with two longitudinal stripes of creta- 

 ceous or yellowish along the middle. The epigynum of the specimen in hand is scarcely 

 matured, but shows an atriolum with a broad base and a slightly projecting scapus, or 

 simple flap. 



M.ile: In general form resembles the female. The cephalothorax is relatively some- 

 what wider; grouping of the eyes substantially the same. The legs and mouth parts are of 

 like color, although the sternum, in the specimen in hand, is of lighter hue. The legs are 

 relatively longer, stronger, and more decidedly armed with yellowish brown spines than 

 the female ; tibia-II is without special clasping spines. The abdomen diflfers decidedly in 

 color, being a beautiful lake red, the central band undulated, and with longitudinal stripes 

 of yellow intervening; the general color of the sides is a warm pink, mottled with 

 occasional black dots, and covered densely with yellowish hairs. The sternum in form 

 difl"ers little from that of the female ; but the maxilla; are scarcely longer than wide, and 

 the tips are squarely truncated. 



Distribution : Both male and female were received from jNIr. Nathan Banks, and col- 

 lected at Olympia, "Washington, by Mr. Trevor Kincaid. Mr. Banks has received several 

 specimens from the same gentleman, and has two from Frauconia, New Hampshire, collected 

 by Mrs. A. Trumbull Slosson. This would indicate a wide distribution across the northern 

 belt of States, or, possibly, introduction by commerce. 



Genus DREXELIA, McCook, 1892. 



In the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 1888 I gave 

 the diagnosis of a new genus of spiders, Drexelia, to receive Hentz's species, Epeira directa, 

 and Cambridge's Epeira tetragnathoides, which appeared to me to be the same, or a closely 

 related, species. Identical with the latter is a third species, which Dr. George Marx, in his 

 catalogue of "Described North American Aranese," has published as Epeira deludens Key- 

 serling in Utlcris, and which had been examined by Count Keyserling. All these specimens 

 appeared to me to be identical, although I had only the description of Cambridge from 

 which to judge, not having seen a typical specimen of his species. Under the circumstances 

 it seemed necessary not only to restore the specific name of Hentz, but to make his species 

 the type of a new genus. 



Drexelia is separated sharply from Epeira by the peculiar elongated shape of the ster- 

 num, which is at least, or nearly, twice as long as wide. Further, by the character of the 

 maxilla\ which are longer than wide; and, still further, by the shape of the abdomen, 

 which is long, narrow, straight, and, especially in the female, bluntly pointed at the base, 

 and somewhat compressed at the apex. The legs are le.ss stout than those of the typical 

 Epeira, and the spinous armature thereon feebler and less abundant; the metatarsus of 

 leg-I about equals the femur in lengtli. In the form of the maxillse Drexelia approaches 

 both Nephila and Meta, but differs from them, and, in a more marked degree, from Epeira, 

 in the relatively greater length of the sternum. It difiers also from these genera in the 

 form of the abdomen, that of Nephila being as long as in Drexelia, but subcylindrical in 

 form, that of Meta being a rounded oval, approaching thus the typical Epeira. In the 

 shape of the abdomen Drexelia somewhat resembles Tetragnatha, and also approaches it in 

 the more feebly armed character of the legs; but the mouth parts and sternum, to say 

 nothing of other characteristics, widely divide these two genera. Drexelia approaches 

 Epeira in the contour of the face and head, but lacks the strong tubercles on which the 

 eyes are placed in the more typical species of Epeira. It resembles examples of the same 

 genus in the general grouping of the eyes, although the two midrear eyes of the central 

 group are more closely approximated than in Epeira. 



Mr. Nathan Banks (Entomulogkal News, Philadelphia, January, 1S94) has expressed the 

 opinion that Drexelia directa properly belongs to Simon's genus Larinia (1874). Certainly 



