Classification of the Spiders. 313 



most generally received classification on the ground of the 

 imperfections of which I have now spoken. 



4. As to the denominations of the different tribus, they 

 are quite as appropriate as many others in constant use 

 in zoology. Mammalia, Reptilia, Amphibia, Carnivora, 

 Oscines, &c. are generally received names, notwithstanding 

 that they express hiological characters, and although there are 

 " Amphibia " which live only in water, " Oscines " that do 

 not sing, &c. The great majority of the Orbitelarias are 

 really " round-web " spiders ; almost all Retitelarise make 

 more or less irregular nets ; most, if not all, CitigradfB are fast 

 runners ; almost all Saltigradte jump, &c. No reasonable 

 objection can therefore be raised against the names Orbite- 

 lariaj &c., unless it were necessary to discard all such names 

 of zoological groups as are taken from biological characters, 

 or that do not suit all^ but only the greater part, of the forms 

 that belong to the group in question. But I do not think 

 that any one will urge against such names any wholesale doom 

 of condemnation. 



I have now gone through and examined the criticisms 

 which Bertkau has formulated against the principal traits of 

 the classification of Spiders at present most in vogue, and have 

 endeavoured to confute them, in so far as they appeared to 

 me unfounded. I have tried to show that the deficiencies 

 which, without any doubt, are to be found in this classification, 

 have in a great part their source in the difficulties inherent in 

 the subject itself, and depending on the peculiar organization 

 of the Spiders, difficulties which it will therefore probably not 

 be possible to conquer completely. In part these deficiencies 

 may be overcome by dividing the order of Spiders into two 

 suborders, Tetrapneumones and DipneumoneSj and these latter 

 into the six tribus Orbitelarice, Retitelaricey &c. (or into a 

 greater number of tribus if this should be considered more 

 convenient), as also by characterizing these groups by means 

 of more detailed diagnoses, instead of by isolated characters, 

 as is the case, for instance, in the modern and often useful, 

 but not equally scientific, " analytical tables " *. In the 

 details of the system, as in the limitation of the families, 

 and in assigning the right place to several among them 

 whose affinities were contested or wrongly interpreted, many 

 corrections have already been made by Dr. Bertkau, and 

 many others may still remain to be carried out. By con- 



* In his " Analytisclie Uebersicht der europaischen Spinneufamilien " 

 (' Mittheilungen des naturwissenschaftlichen Vereius I'lir Steiermark/ 

 Jahrgang 1877), Ausserer has, with fine tact, omitted to try to charac- 

 terize the diiierent tribus (suborders). 



