162 T. THORELL, 
1825. Tetrapneumones Larr., Fam. Nat. du Règne Anim., p. 312. 
1830. Theraphosæ Sunp., Sv. Spindl. Beskr., im Vet.-Akad. Handl. f. 1829, p. 203. 
1833. Mygalides ID., Consp. Arachn., p. 28. 
It is well known that Cuvier in the year 1800 gave the name of 
Mygale to a genus of Mammals, and that WALCKENAER first in 1802 (” dans 
un Mémoire lu à la Société Philomatique de Paris": see WALCK., Faune 
Parisienne, II, p. 249) separated the spiders belonging to the family before 
us from the others or "spiders properly so called” (Aranea WALCK.) under 
the name of Mygale. Some naturalists have curiously enough attempted to 
avoid the confusion thus introduced, by altering CUVIER'S generic name into 
Myogale or Myogalea — which however is only another way of spelling 
Mygale — instead of, in accordance with the law of priority, altering the 
more recent name or replacing it with another, as reasonableness requires. 
It ean moreover hardly be denied that the name Mygale, as that of a ge- 
nus of spiders, is ill chosen: the Greek word wvyalÿ, uvyalén OT uvoydan 
signifies a shrew (Sorex), and nothing else. Nevertheless, in spite of the 
requirements of consistency, we should perhaps not have ventured ,to ex- 
change this generally known and accepted generie name for another, if the 
following circumstances had not contributed to induce us to such a step. 
First and principally the genus Mygale has by more recent authors been 
resolved into several smaller generic groups, by C. KocH ?) for inst. into 
seven, so that by him the name of Mygale is only retained for a group 
comprising but two species, JM. Blondi and M. Javanensis, whereas all 
the other forms described by him bear other generie names — and the mat- 
ter is aecordingly reduced merely to the giving of another name to the 
above mentioned little group; moreover that other name needs not be a new 
and previously unknown denomination, for we have at hand an appropriate 
generic name formed by WALCKENAER himself in 1805, namely Theraphosa, 
which in the original definition of that genus is absolutely synonymous with 
Mygale. This word is not, as has been sometimes supposed, a plural, but 
a true generic name in the singular number”), and has already in 1830 
been used by EICHWALD ?) instead of Mygale. In the Tableau des Arané- 
ides WALCKENAER divided "les Aranéides” into two great "Divisions", 
1) Uebers. d. Arachn.-Syst., 5, p. 12— 5. 
2) It is so taken by e. g. SUNDEVALL, as is evident from the following words: 
"WALCKENAER considered that he had sufficient reason to separate the Bird-spiders 
and the species most nearly allied to them, as a separate genus, Theraphosa, from 
LixNÉ's Aranea.” Sv. Spindl. Beskr., in Vet.-Akad. Handl. f. 1829, p. 190. 
3) Zool. spee., II, p. 73. 
