CATALOGUE OF NEARCTIC SPIDERS. 



By Nathan Banks, 



Custodian of Arachnida, U. S. National Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The publication of Doctor Marx's catalogue of our spiders some 

 twenty years ago was followed by great activity in descriptive work, 

 so that now, to-day, new spiders are not more common than new 

 species in many orders of insects. Three large families, the Epeiridae, 

 the Lycosidie, and the Attidae, have been revised by specialists. The 

 appearance of Simon's second edition of the Histoire Naturelle des 

 Araignees has enabled us to make some generic corrections; so that 

 our genera are on a fair basis, except those in the Erigoninae. Yet at 

 present monographic works are scarcely advisable, since in most of 

 the families there are many species known from only one sex, and there 

 are large regions of our countiy in which no one has collected spiders. 



This catalogue includes a little over 1,300 species; and there will be 

 certainly 2,000 in our country when the West and South are explored 

 as thoroughly as New England now is. The largest family is the 

 Theridiidos with 298 species; the Attidse is next with 213; two other 

 families, the Lycosidse and Epeiridae, have over 100 species in each. 

 Sixteen families have less than 10 species apiece. 



A few new names have been proposed where other names were 

 preoccupied by foreign species. 



The arrangement is very similar to that of the Marx catalogue, 

 only a few changes have been made, such as the recognition of 

 peculiar forms as representing families; none of these changes are 

 new. 



THERAPHOSID^. 



ATYPUS. 



Latreille, Nouv. Diet. Hi?t. Nat., vol. 24, p. 133, 1804. 



bicolor Lucas, Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 1836, p. 213. — Eastern States. 

 milberti Walckenaer, Ins. Apt., vol. 1, p. 249, 1837. — Eastern States. 



niger Hentz, Journ. Bost. Soc. Nat. IILst., vol. 4, p. 224, 1842; Spid. U. S., 

 p. 19, 1875. 



