lately discovered in England. 433 



and clearer hue than the abdomen ; their relative length is 

 1, 4, 2, 3. Each tarsus ends with three claws. 



Palpi like the legs in colour, and with a minute curved claw 

 at the end of the last joint. 



Falces small, conical, and vertical. 



Maxillce obliquely truncated at the end on the outer side, and 

 greatly inclined towards the labium. 



Labium semicircular. 



Sternum broad, convex, and punctured like the cephalo thorax, 

 similar also to which, all these parts are of a deep mahogany- 

 brown. 



Abdomen short, broad, very convex above, and greatly project- 

 ing over the base of the cephalothorax ; it is of a rusty- yellow 

 colour, thinly clothed v/ith hairs of a paler hue ; about the centre 

 of the upper side are four depressed spots of a deep red-brown 

 colour, in the form of a square, the front side rather the shortest : 

 these spots are plainly marked in all the specimens, though of a 

 deeper colour in some than in others. In one specimen two 

 more similar minute spots were visible, forming another square 

 towards the spinners. One specimen had a kind of ragged 

 line composed of minute white spots running round the front of 

 the upper part of the abdomen ; and this specimen had a palish 

 longitudinal line down the centre. A long and irregularly oval 

 patch of deep red-brown occupies each side, and there are two 

 smaller ones of the same colour on the upper part of the front 

 of the abdomen, one on each side of the medial line. The under 

 part is of the same colour as the upper, with a broad band of 

 deep I'ed-brown along the middle, enclosing the spinners, which 

 are of a dull rusty-yellow colour. 



I discovered this species, which seems nearly allied to Theri- 

 dion quadripunctatum, though differing in size and habitat, 

 under heathy ledges on Bloxworth Heath, Dorset, in September 

 1860. In the peculiar punctation of the cephalothorax and 

 sternum, Theridion stictum resembles Theridion guttatum, a very 

 pretty little species, taken by myself for the first time, as British, 

 in the summer of 1860, at the roots of heath, &c., near Win- 

 chester, and at Bloxworth, Dorset. 



Theridion inornatum. 



General colour plain ; abdomen shining brownish black ; nearly 

 all the rest of the spider is of a reddish- yellow colour, except 

 part of the Jirst and second pairs, and a conspicuous longish 

 spot on the fourth pair of legs, which are dark red-brown : 

 palpi short ; cubital joint gouty ; digital joint large ; palpal 



