392 Prof. E. P. Wright on a Collection 



of smooth pm-like spicules with ovate heads, mixed up plen- 

 tifully with a mass of minute stellate spicules, each consisting 

 of a globular body more or less covered with a variable num- 

 ber of radiating spines chiefly spinulous at the extremities, 

 together with a few larger ones with smooth conical spines 

 like that figured by Dr. Bowerbank (Brit. Sponges, vol. i. pi. vi. 

 fig. 164) from " Tethealngalli, MS.," but not the same. This 

 combination, together with the cartilaginous nature of the 

 fragments, indicates a close alliance to Tethea lyncurium. 



That of the other kind, which grows in a film over the spe- 

 cimens of PoJytrema on the crab-claw, presents the following 

 combination, viz. : — 1, a club-shaped, thickly sjiinous spicule 

 with the spines recurved or inclined towards the head ; 2, a 

 much longer, thin, smooth, cylindrical spicule, with abruptly 

 pointed ends, one of which is occasionally oblong-capitate 5 

 and, 3, an anchorate spicule, tridentate, webbed, and " angu- 

 lated," like that figured by Dr. Bowerbank (Brit. Spong. pi. vi. 

 f. 143) as characteristic of Bpongia plximosa^ Montagu. This, 

 again, is evidently one of Dr. Gray's Esperiadae {ojp. et loc. 

 cit.). 



XLV. — Notes on a Collection of Spiders made in Sicily in the 

 Spring of 1868. By E. Perceval Wright, M.D., F.L.S., 

 Professor of Botany, Trinity College, Dublin. With a List 

 of the Species, and Descrip)tions of some neic SjJecies and of 

 a new Genus, by JOHN Blackwall, F.L.S. 



[Plate VIII.] 



Crossing Mont Cenis on the last day of April 1868, I arrived 

 in Florence on the evening of the 1st of May, and, proceeding 

 v?'t? Lucca, Leghorn, and Rome, reached Naples about the lOtli 

 of May. Here I joined my kind friend A. H. Haliday, A.M., 

 wdio had invited me to join him in a month's ramble upon the 

 slopes of Etna. We had to wait until the 15th for Florio's 

 steamer to Messina ; but, the weather being very fine, the 

 time was passed by us most pleasantly in wandering, now on 

 the sides of Vesuvius (which at the time was in full eruption, 

 belching forth steam mingled with stones, and ejecting more 

 than one stream of brightly glowing lava), and again by the 

 Lucrine Lake and at Baiffi. Arriving in Sicily, we spent one 

 week collecting at and in the immediate neighbourhood of Mes- 

 sina, and a little more than a fortnight on the slopes of Etna. 

 Catania was our headquarters ; but a week was spent at 

 Nicolosi, and it was here that the collection of spiders which 



