1915.]| F. H. Gravety: Indian Mygalomorph Spiders. 281 
was lined with these burrows; but having little time to spare 
when I noticed them, and no proper digging implements, I only 
got one spider from them. This was a male which I had no 
hesitation in associating with the similar-looking female common 
in the district, 7.e. with Melopoeus minax. Its characters were, 
however, those of a Cyriopagus rather than of a Melopoeus. 
This led me to consider whether Cyriopagus might not be simply 
the male of Melopoeus. The type of the former genus is record- 
ed as a female; but it is in our collection, and there can, I 
think, be no doubt at all about its immaturity. It may there- 
fore be a male. Omothymus schioedtei, Thorell, which Simon 
refers to the genus Cyriopagus, is described from a male only. 
The male of Selenocosmia albostriata, the species for which Pocock 
established the genus Melopoeus, is described by Simon (1886, 
p. 162) as ‘‘feminae subsimilis sed cephalothorace humiliore.’’ 
The low cephalothorax is one of the two chief characters in 
which Cyviopagus differs from Melopoeus; and nothing is said as 
to the distance of the eyes from the margin of the carapace in 
either sex of the species in question. I conclude, therefore, 
that Cyriopagus and Melopoecus represent opposite sexes of one 
genus. 
Of these two names the former has priority. This is unfor- 
tunate, inasmuch as the genus Ovnithoctonus, which is known 
from the female sex only, differs from Cyriopagus in the same 
characters as does ‘‘ Melopoeus’’, and may also very possibly have 
a male with Cyviopagus characters. The characters by which 
Pocock separates Cyriopagus (== Melopoeus) from Ornithoctonus 
are unsatisfactory even for females; and the two genera will very 
likely have to be united. 
The material before me is not, however, sufficient to justify 
this course at present, so the probable relation of the genotype 
of the former, Cyriopagus paganus, to other members of these 
genera must be considered. ‘Ihe characters by which their females 
are separated are found in practice to be so unsatisfactory even in 
that sex, that it would be hopeless to try to apply them to the 
other. Pocock’s figure of the stridulating organ of Ornithoctonus 
suggests, however, another means of separating that genus from 
Cyriopagus. For the stridulatory processes of the palp are shown 
as long spiniform structures, whereas in Cyriopagus minax they are 
short and denticuliform. And it may be mentioned that a speci- 
men in our collection which seems to approach the genus Orni- 
thoctonus rather than “‘ Melopoeus”’ in the characters of its legs and 
fovea has spiniform, not denticuliform, stridulatory processes on 
the palp. Unfortunately the locality of the specimen is not known, 
The stridulatory processes on the palp are denticuliform in 
the genotype of Cyriopggus; so it is Melopoeus rather than 
Ornithoctonus that must now be sunk as a synonym. Whether 
Ornithoctonus is to be sunk as well requires further investigation. 
Apart from the immature type of Cyrtopagus paganus, 
C. minax is the only named species of this group in our collection, 
