B » . " 
"^ ON EUROPEAN SPIDERS. 117 
Fam. III AGALENOIDÆ. 
Syn.: 1837. Agelenides C. KocH, Uebers. d. Arachn.-Syst., 1, p. 13 (ad max. part.). 
1852. Tubicolæ DonzscH., Syst. Verzeichn. etc., p. 14 (ad max. part.). 
The Agalenoidie were detached as a separate family from LATREILLE’S 
Tubitelæ or SUNDEVALL'S Drassides by C. Kocu 1837 (loc. cit), and that 
family has since been acknowledged by BLACKWALL, OHLERT, and others. 
* In WALCKENAER it also forms a group, "les Tapitöles” , answering to one 
x sof our families. WESTRING on the other hand preserves SUNDEVALL’S Dras- 
LA 
© 
„sides undivided, and Reh assigns the Agalenoide to that family. Sı- 
ON has, as beu (p. 33), united most of the spiders belonging to this 
A, EIS with Lin yphia ane others, into a "tribus", "les Linyphiens” 
of the family "les Theridiformes” — a way of classing them, which, in 
y opinion, is quite inadmissible. Species of the genera Dictyna and Ti- 
^ taneca have formerly, before their relationship with Amaurobius was detected, 
been reckoned as Theridioide, by e. g. WALCKENAER (who also has described 
a couple of species of Dictyna under the head of his Drassus), and Sun- 
DEVALL, and even still by SIMON and OnHLERT ). Hyptiotes on the con- 
trary, which builds a regular, geometrical net in the form of a circular 
sector, and is nearly related to Uloborus (vid. sup. p. 69 et seq.), has been er- 
-. roneously referred by AUSSERER ?) and CANESTRINI?) to the Agalenoide, to 
^ which these authors, as well as DOLESCHALL 5), also assign Pholcus (and 
‘Rachus or Spermophora), which I believe to be equally unnatural. The 
genus Teatrix, which exhibits sundry remarkable analogies with the 
Lycosoidæ, has sometimes, e. g. by Lucas 5), been placed in juxtaposition 
with genera belonging to this latter family, which also, through the me- 
dium of Dolomedes, nearly approaches the Agalenoide. But it never- 
theless appears to be generally admitted that the Drassoide are the nearest 
relations of this last-named family: the transition from the Agalenoide to 
the Drassoide is in fact so gradual, that the demarcation can only be made 
in a tolerably arbitrary and artificial manner; several genera, situated just 
upon the boundary-line between the two families, have therefore been re- 
ferred sometimes to the one, sometimes to the other, and sometimes they 
. have been formed into a separate family. Thus according to C. Kocx the 
1) Aran. d. Prov. Preuss., p. 33. 2) Die. Arachn. Tirols, I, p. 14. 
3) Aran. Ital., p. 65. 4) Syst. Verzeichn. ete., p. 14. 
5) Explor. de l'Algérie, Arachn., p. 121: Gen. Lycosoides Lucas ad partem = 
Textrix SUND. 
