On EUROPEAN SPIDERS. 55 
the 3" pair of legs is more than half as long as the first pair; in the se- 
cond group (Zygia and Zilla) the length of the 3" pair is /ess than half 
that of the 1"; and lastly in the third group (Meta) the length of the 3" 
pair is equal to half that of the first. The first group is also distinguished 
from the second and third by the form of the 4'" joint of the male’s palpi, 
which is short, broad and bowl-formed, not, as in the case of the others, 
cylindrieal and of greater length than breadth — a characteristic accordingly, 
that holds good only for one sex. The distinctions derived from the rela- 
tive length of the 1* and 3" pairs of legs do not however hold even for the 
few species that OHLERT has treated: in his Zilla acalypha (at least ©) for ex. 
the 3" pair of legs is not at all shorter but on the contrary considerably 
longer than half the 1‘, and that species ought therefore not to have been 
referred to Zilla but to Epeira (to which genus I have aggregated it) or 
Singa. Moreover this relation is sometimes different in the different sexes 
of the same species.) — Within the first group, Æpeira and Singa on the 
one hand are distinguished from Miranda and Aéea on the other by the 4 
intermediary eyes of the first named genera forming a trapezoid, of which 
the posterior side is shorter than the anterior, and being all of about the 
same size, whereas in the latter they form a rectangle, and the hindermost 
of them are sensibly larger than the anterior ones. Of how little conse- 
quence however these differences are, will doubtless be immediately seen 
by anybody who has examined a larger number of not only European 
Epeiroidæ. If suchlike trifling differences in the position and size of the 
eyes are to be considered as decisive in the formation, within this family, 
1) In a large full-grown female of Meta Menardi (LaTR.), I find the length of 
the 1% and 3" pairs of legs, reckoned from the edge of the cephalothorax, respec- 
tively 32'/, and 19 '/,, or, if the coxæ be taken into account, 34 and 21 millimeters; 
accordingly the 3™ pair of legs more than half as long as the 1*. This is also 
certainly the case in the male M. Menardi: in the only full-grown specimen I have 
of this spider, the tarsi of the 1* pair are wanting, but if these be considered as 
only half the length of the metatarsi, the 3" pair in this specimen will still be longer 
than half the first. — In a moderate-sized 5’ of Meta Merianæ (Scor.) I have indeed 
found the 1* pair of legs just double the length of the third, when the coxe are 
ineluded, but in Q the ease is otherwise: in a small, but fullgrown female specimen 
I found the first pair of legs 14"" and the 5"! pair 8 '/,"”-, reckoned from the edge 
of the cephalothorax; reckoned from the bases of the cox: these pairs were respec- 
tively 15""- and 9'/,"» long. — In cf of Zilla reticulata €. Kocx or Meta segmen- 
tata (CLERCK) the first pair is more than double, nearly 3 times, as long as the 
3™ but in the female scarcely double: if the coxæ are included, the 3" pair is at 
least sometimes longer than half the first. 
