XXIV.—New EnGrAND Spipers or THE Faminy CINIFLONID A. 
By J. H. Emerton. 
Tue spinning organs of the Ciniflonide differ from those of all 
other spiders. They have in front of the usual spinnerets an ad- 
ditional spinning organ, the cribellwm, with spinning tubes like the 
other spinnerets, but much finer, and they have on the metatarsus of 
each hind leg a row of stiff hairs, the calamistrwm, by which the 
thread is combed from the cribellum in a loose curly band. This 
band of loose thread forms part of every cobweb made by these 
spiders (Pl. x, fig. 1y.) and is easily distinguished in new webs by its 
width and white color and in old webs by the amount of dust which 
it collects. 
The feet have three claws and some species have a few curved 
and toothed spines under the claws, like Hpeitride and Theridide. 
The trachee are large and open in a wide slit in front of the 
cribellum. 
The colors are generally dull brown and grey. A double row of 
oblique light markings on the back of the abdomen, which shows 
most distinctly in Amaurobius, is in a modified from the usual mark- 
ing of the abdomen throughout the family, often varying greatly in 
shape in the same species. 
These spiders were first placed together in one family by Black 
wall, who in 1839 noticed their peculiar webs and spinning organs. 
Before that time they had been scattered among various families 
according to their size, form, and habits. They have been treated in 
the same way by Thorell in his book on the genera of European 
‘spiders, and by Menge in the spiders of Prussia. Simon divides the 
French species into two families, Dictynidw and Uloboride.  Bert- 
kau in his latest revision of the family, in 1882, carries the division 
into families still further and unites them all into a sub-order, 
Cribellata. 
I have followed Blackwall in considering the group as one family, 
and use his name Ciniflonide. The sub-family Uloborine of Thorell 
J. Blackwall. On the number and structure of the mammul employed by spiders 
in the process of spinuing. Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. xviii, 1839. 
P. Bertkau. Cribellum and Calamistrum. Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte, 1882. 
JULY, 1888. 
