26 



Psyche 



[April 



This group is distinguished, as mentioned by Banks in his de- 

 scription of Scaptocosa in Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc., 1904, by the 

 absence, in females only, of spines on the upper side of tibia III 

 and IV and by definite black markings on the under side of legs 

 I and II in both sexes. In pikei the black extends the whole 

 length of legs I and II including the coxae. In nidifex it covers 

 four terminal joints. In missouriensis it covers three terminal 

 joints and in wrightii three joints of leg I and two and part of the 

 third of leg II. Fig 1. In this group the first leg is proportion- 

 ally thicker in both sexes than in the other Lycosidse. In the 



Fig. 2. Lycosa pikei sitting in the mouth of its burrow waiting for insects 

 to come within reach. 



males the first leg is three times at long as the cephalothorax in 

 nidifex and wrightii and two and three-fourths times as long in 

 missouriensis and pikei. In females it is two and a half times as 

 long in nidifex, two and a quarter in wrightii, two and a fifth in 

 pikei and twice in missouriensis. 



L. fikei lives in sandy country near the seashore from Maine 

 to New Jersey; L. nidifex along the eastern coast from Maine 

 to Georgia and westward as far as Albany, N. Y., and Atlanta, 

 Ga.; missouriensis along the Great Lakes in Ohio, Indiana 

 and Illinois and south to Missouri and North Carolina; L. 

 wrightii in sandy country along the Lakes from the eastern end 



