M. T. Thorell on Aranea lobata. 189 
which has been admitted ever since*. We see, however, from 
this that Fabricius had no knowledge of Pallas’s A. lobata 
beyond that which he derived from the Spicil. Zool., and 
moreover that he was as unacquainted with the above-cited 
passage in Pallas’s ‘ Naturgesch. merkw. Thiere’ as any one 
of the various authors who have occupied themselves with 
Olivier’s A. sericea. 
Walckenaer (Hist. Nat. d. Ins. Apt. p. 117) believes, cu- 
riously enough, that the true Zp. sericea does not belong to 
the European fauna. This is the more unaccountable, from 
the fact that Olivier, who first described this spider under the 
specific name sericea, expressly says that he found it “ fre- 
quently in Provence.” Walckenaer nevertheless accepts as 
properly a European species the L. dentata (Risso), differing 
from A. sertcea merely in markings, which, coming from Nice, 
is consequently from almost the very same region (south of 
France) where Olivier found his Aranea sericea! Walckenaer 
seems to be as little acquainted from personal observation with 
E. dentata (his description of it is a mere extract from Risso) 
as with any European example of A. sericea. 
The specimens of the species in question, however, which I 
have seen, and which I collected in Italy in the tracts about 
Naples, where Costa also found “petra sericea” t, agree 
perfectly not only with Pallas’s A. lobata, but also with the 
descriptions and figures which Olivier, Latreille, Walckenaer, 
and Audouin have left us of A. (E.) sericea. They lack the 
markings which belong to “ H. dentata”’ according to Risso’s 
(and Walckenaer’s) representation of that form, which, how- 
ever, is certainly only a colour variety of “E. sericea” |. 
lobata. 
To “ E. dentata” Walckenaer rightly refers Lepechin’s 
above-named “Aranea (... abdomine... lobato, &e.)” (A. ar- 
gentea, Gmel.), which, as we have already seen, is allowed by 
Pallas himself to be identical with his A. lobata; here also 
should undoubtedly be referred Argyopes prelautus, Koch, 
from Turkey (tracts of the Balkan), as Walckenaer has sup- 
posed. 
* Walckenaer says (Hist. Nat. d. Ins. Apt. ii. p. 116), with reference 
to Epeira argentata (Fabr.), “‘ Conférez pour cette espéce Pallas, ‘ Spici- 
legia Zoologica,’ fasc. 9. p. 46, tab. 3. fige. 13 et 14” (it should be “14 & 
15”)—that is to say, the descriptions and figures of A. lobata, which, 
however, do not in the least agree with Walckenaer’s description of EF. 
argentata, but do agree very well with that which he gives af E. sericea. 
E. argentata, moreover, comes from America (“ India,” Fabr.). 
+ O. G. Costa, ‘Cenni zoologici ossia descrizione sommaria delle specie 
nuove di animali discoperti in diverse contrade del regno nell’ anno 1884," 
p- 16 (1834). 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. ii. 14 
