272 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



was entirely fulfilled the expectation with which I entereil upon the pre])- 

 aration of these comparative tables.' 



It may not be without interest, and may, perhaps, have some beai-ing 

 upon the above theory of distribution, to remark that the genus (or a 

 closely allied genus) to which Hetera2:)oda venatoria belongs is jtrobably 

 one of the oldest known forms of the spider fauna. Thorell ~ places the 

 now existing genus Heterapoda (Ocypete, Koch ; Oxypete, Menge) among 

 those which are represented in the amber spiders. Amber probably be- 

 longs to the tertiary (oligocene) period, and in it numerous spiders are 

 found, generally well preserved. How far any supposed contiguity or 

 tdoser approach of continents now sei)arated might have facilitated or oc- 

 casioned the world round distribution of our Huntsman spider, is a point 

 upon which geologists may more properly express an opinion. 



The question, what variation of species, if any, occurs in the course 



of this distribution, is of great interest. The specimens examined by me 



show no variations which may not come within the range of 



Variation tj^ose natural differences which obtain in many species. Most of 



of PliDf^oif^^ 



, -X- ^ ■ the specimens had been so long in alcoliol as to obliterate any 



bution. diiferences in color and markings which miglit have existed. 

 The normal color is a uniform tawny yellow, varied upon the 

 cephalothorax by a circular jjatch of blackish or blackish brown color 

 covering nearly two-thirds of the space ; and, further, by a white or whit- 

 ish marginal band quite or nearly girdling the same. In some of the 

 specimens this circular patch seems to have been more or less of a brown- 

 ish color. Gerstaecker ^ speaks of this species as distributed over a large 

 part of Africa, Asia, and South America. Specimens were examined by 

 liim from Dafeta, Mombas, and Zanzibar. In these there was some varia- 

 tion in the coloration of the maxillaiy palpi : on the one hand, from a 

 light rust color to brownish red and pitch brown ; on the other hand, to 

 a more or less sharp division or limitation of the light yellow color of 

 the anterior and posterior borders of the cephalothorax. There was also 

 a browning of the region about the eyes. But the araneologist will not 

 regard such differences as having any special value as specific characters. 



' When these studies were originally announced in the Philadelphia Academy, I had 

 no specimens from the South Pacific Islands within the same general belt ; nor from the 

 chain of small islands between the Sandwich Islands and Asia, viz., Philadelphia, Drake, and 

 Massai'husetts Islands, Anson and ]SIagellan Archipelagoes ; nor the Cape Verde and St. 

 Helena Islands, off the west coast of .\frica. Nevertheless, I expressed the belief that these 

 had all been stations in the line of migration, the latter across the Atlantic Ocean as the 

 Antilles have been ; the former across the Pacific, as the Sandwich Islands, Loo-Choo Island, 

 and .Tapan have been, and as ^lauritius and JIadagascar Islands have been across the In- 

 dian Ocean. ^loreover, I ventured the prediction that a more diligent search would prove that 

 this cosmopolitan species exists, and ])robably had already been collected at some of the 

 above point,". 



' European Sjiiders, Jiage 231, Nov. Acta. Keg. Scjc. Sci., Upsal., 1870. 



^ Von der Uecken's Travels in East Africa, III., ii., page 482. 



