from the Loioer Amazons d;c. 59 



probability may be ; and I therefore select P. /era, Perty, as 

 the type of the genus Phoneutria. 



The next question is, What are the generic and specific 

 affinities of this form ? 



The figure (pi. xxxix. fig. 3) of the eye-formula leaves us 

 in no doubt whatever that it is one of the forms which we 

 now class as Ctenida3. But, curiously enough, I have not 

 yet, amongst some hundreds of examples from Messrs. Salvia 

 and Godman's collection from Central America, from Key- 

 serling's collection from South America, and from my own 

 specimens collected on the Amazons, met with a single one 

 whose eye-formula agrees with Perty's figure. 



In this figure the second row of eyes is strongly recurved 

 (concavity backwards). In all the New- World forms I have 

 been able to examine this row is either straight or procurved. 



It is a curious fact, however, that of numbers of Cteninas 

 which have come before me from the Old World, very many 

 forms from Africa do present exactly the character claimed 

 in virtue of Perty's figui'e for Phoneutria. 



This fact undoubtedly accounts for the assignment of 

 several African species by a number of authors to this genus. 



I do not say that tliis eye-formula does not exist in the 

 New W^orld ; but I do say that the genus Phoneutria, if sepa- 

 rated from CtenuSj Walk., can only be done so on this cha- 

 racter, as the authors in question have done, and any New- 

 World form assigned to the genus or to the species P.fera^ 

 Perty, must present this character unuustakabl3^ 



The type of the form to which Keyserling assigned the 

 name Phoneutria fera, P^i'ty, is now before me, and in this 

 specimen the second row of eyes is most distinctly straight. 

 It cannot be called fera of Perty, and I have mucii pleasure 

 in connecting with it the name of Count Keyserling, and shall 

 refer to it below as Ctenus Kei/serltngii. 



As to the specific identity of the true P. fera, Perty, one is 

 compelled to regard it as a " forma ignota " also, though its 

 generic relations are certain so far as the eye-formula is con- 

 cerned. Keyserling probably concluded that Perty's figure 

 was erroneous ; most likely it is, but without any description 

 bearing out such a conclusion, one has no right to assume it 

 to be so. 



M. Simon has remarked of Ctenus dubius, Walck., that 

 " il est synonyme du genre Phonevtria.^^ This may be so, 

 but only if we include all forms with eyes of the second row 

 straight or recurved under one comprehensive generic group. 



For the present, there being no immediate necessity for 

 deciding whether Phoneutria should be regarded as a synonym 



