ON EUROPEAN SPIDERS. 71 
only then in external character, but also in habits and form of web is the 
greatest likeness visible between Mithras and the Epeiroidæ. Hitherto, and 
with good reason, the habits of spiders, and especially the form they give their 
webs, have been considered as affording the surest basis for a natural grou- 
ping and classification of these animals; and as, in all probability, all the 
species that belong to the family Epeiroide distinguish themselves by their 
power of spinning regular geometrical webs ?) — on which account that fa- 
mily received from LATREILLE the name of Orbitelæ — and in short one never 
assigns to any other family a species, which is known to spin such a net?), 
it seems evident that the genus Mithras ought to be included in the Epei- 
roid, although it must be placed last among them, nearest to the genus 
Uloborus, with which it also best agrees in the looseness of its web.” 
(Loc. cit. p. 203—204). 
Sub-ordo U. RETITELARLE. 
Syn.: 1817. ”Inequiteles” Larr., in Cvv., Regne Anim., T. II, p. 84. 
1823. Laquearie SUND., Gen. Aran. Suec., p. 13. 
1825. Inæquitelæ Larr., Fam. Nat. du Règne Anim., p. 314. 
1833. Theridides SUND., Consp. Arachn., p. 15. 
The limit between this and the next following sub-order, Tubitelarie, 
is difficult to determine with sharpness. The genera Dictyna, Titancca, 
lofty valley of the Cordillera, near Mendoza, I found another spider with a singularly 
formed web. Strong lines radiated in a vertical plane from a common centre, where 
the insect had its station; but only two of the rays were connected by a symmetrical 
meshwork, so that the net, instead of being, as is generally the case, circular, con- 
sisted of a wedge-shaped segment. All the webs were similarly constructed.” 
1) We should perhaps except the genus Dolophones, if that genus really belong 
to the Epeiroidæ (Conf. WaLcx. H. N. d. Ins. Apt., I, p. 383), and, according to 
SUNDEVALL (Consp. Arachn., p. 13), an East Indian species of Epeira, which he calls 
JE. abnormis, but does not describe: it is said to spin an irregular net. Of Argyro- 
des Sim. vid. p. 48. 
2) ”I take no notice of the curious classification of the family Zheridide, in 
N:o 5 of Kocn's Uebers. d. Arachn.-Systems, where such genera appear as for 
example Meta, of the five cited species of which three are Æpeiroidæ (M. fusca = 
M. Menardi (LATR.), Merianæ = M. fusca (DE GEER), and muraria), one belongs 
to the genus Linyphia (M. tigrina = Lin. socialis SUND.) and the fifth (M. cellulana) 
appears to be a Theridium; or Eucharia, of the three species of which two, Æ. bi- 
