ARANEIDEA. 25 



equal to perhaps a little over two diameters. Those of the fore-central pair are also nearer 

 to each other than each is to the fore-lateral on its side, being less than two diameters' dis- 

 tance from each other; those of each lateral pair are seated rather obliquely on a tubercle 

 and are contiguous to each other ; the interval between each fore-central eye and the hind- 

 central opposite to it is rather greater than the diameter of the former, the height of the 

 clypeus being less. 



The legs are long, slender, and tapering ; they are of a rather dull straw-yellow colour, 

 all furnished with hairs and spines, and their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3. Each tarsus ends 

 with two claws hidden by a dense black claw-tuft, from which a thin scopula extends back- 

 wards beneath the joint, and some little way also along the under side of the metatarsi, where 

 it merges among the ordinary hairs with which those parts are furnished. 



The palpi are short and moderately strong, their colour is similar to that of the legs, 

 except that the digital joint is dark brown ; the humeral joint is rather longer than the 

 cubital and radial joints together, the latter being double the length of the cubital, furnished 

 with long bristly hiars, and terminating at its fore extremity with two apophyses ; one of 

 these on the outer side is tolerably long, of a deep red-brown colour, and corneous nature, 

 sinuously bent, tapering, single-pointed, the point sharp, but not attenuated ; the other 

 apophysis is on the inner side, short, obtuse, rounded at its extremity, and margined with 

 red-brown ; the digital joint is large and hairy, the basal half roundish, the fore half some- 

 what cylindrically attenuate, the division between the two portions being (as usual) well 

 marked by a sudden notch-like, or angular, depression on the outer side ; the normal spur, 

 directed backwards from the hinder part of the digital joint, is of a deep black red-brown 

 colour ; it tapers to a sharp point and is directed outwards, crosses the outer radial apophysis, 

 its length being nearly about equal to that portion of the outer margin of the digital joint 

 where the abrupt indentation divides it from the semi-cylindrical extremity. The palpal 

 organs consist of a large roundish bulb, from the outer side of the fore part of which a 

 tapering spine coils round to the base, where it ends in a filiform point ; and along the 

 middle is a rather long, pale, corneous process, broad, roundish, blunt, and reddish-brown at 

 its fore extremity, which extends well beyond the bulb and has a semi-diaphanous membran. 

 ous point in connection with it. 



Thefalces are straight, moderately long, strong, and not very much porrected; they are 

 roundly prominent near their base in front, when looked at in profile, and roundly cut away 

 for a very little space on the inner side of the fore extremity ; their colour is a deep, rich, 

 shining red-brown. 



The maxillce are of the ordinary form, inclined a little towards the labium, which is 

 oblong and truncated at the apex, the corners being a little rounded off ; the colour of the 

 labium is dark red-brown, the apex narrowly margined with pale whitish-yellow ; the fore 

 half of the rnaxillse is of a less deep red-brown colour, the basal portion being yellow. 



The sternum is heart-shaped, yellow, and depressed between the points of the insertion 

 of the legs. 



The abdomen is oval, broadest in the middle, and projects fairly over the base of the 

 cephalothorax ; it is clothed thinly with hairs, and is of a dull, luteous-yellow colour, thickly 

 spotted with small, yellowish-white, cretaceous-looking spots, leaving the normal elongate 

 macula distinct on the forehalf of the upper side ; this macula is rather pointed at its 

 hinder extremity. The spinners are rather small, of moderate length, and of a brownish- 

 yellow colour. 



