240 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the Hyracotherian Character of the Lower Molars of the sup- 

 posed Macacus from the Eocene Sand of Kyson, Suffolk. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, — The fossil teeth from the Eocene sand at Kyson, 

 referred by me to a species of Macacus*, are most probably the 

 lower molars of a species of Hyracotherium (//. cuniculus). The 

 great difference of shape between the upper and lower molars of 

 Pliolophus, and the pattern according to which the lower molars are 

 differentiated in that Hyracotherioid animal, led me to suspect that 

 the degree of difference between the upper molars of Pliolophus and 

 those of Hyracotherium might be attended with a corresponding de- 

 gree of difference in the lower molars of the two genera, and that such 

 degree might render the lower molars of Hyracotherium as much 

 like the lower molars of Macacus as the detached two molars are 

 which were first discovered by Mr. Colchester, and described by me. 

 In the collection of the late Mr. Acton were a series of both upper 

 and lower molars from the Kyson deposits, the upper ones of the 

 Hyracotherium type, and the lower ones analogous in their modifi- 

 cations to those in Pliolophus, but more resembling the type of Ma- 

 cacus, and the same in character as the original molars which I 

 referred, in the volume of the ' Annals ' before cited, to Macacus. 

 I am, Gentlemen, yours faithfully, 



Richard Owen. 



A Neio British My gale. 



To the Editor of the ' Brighton Gazette.' 



Sir, — May I record in your columns the discovery of a My gale new 

 to the British fauna ? The Atypus Sulseri, recorded by Dr. Leach, 

 has hitherto been the only representative of the Mygalidse in the 

 British fauna ; and the new species is the Dysdera erythrina of 

 Latreille. 



I took it, on the 19th of July last, from a steep, sunny clay-bank, 

 ill-famed for adders, near Brighton. It is a male, and is still alive 

 and active. I took it in a lump of crumbling clay containing the 

 tube and an egg-bag, the mouth of which is stopped with the corslet 

 of a spider of the same species. The falces act horizontally ; the 

 eyes are six, placed upon a tubercle, and arranged horse-shoe fashion, 

 with the opening in front. This Mygale climbs up the side of the 

 bottle when he pleases, and rests, back downwards, for hours, on the 

 linen rag covering the mouth of it ; and Dysdera erythrina is evi- 

 dently a Mygale built for crawling and struggling through the small 

 cracks and crevices of loose and dry clay-banks, and for seizing and 

 killing his prey with fangs acting horizontally. — John Robertson. 



"On Thursday evening," says the 'Brighton Herald' of August 

 16, 1862, "Mr. Robertson exhibited to the members of this Society 

 [the Brighton and Sussex Natural History Society] a living male 

 specimen of Dysdera erythrina, a new species of Mygale." 



* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 1. vol. iv. p. 191 (1840). 



