ARANEIDEA. 105 



marginal line, and the whole is clothed pretty thickly with mixed yellowish, coppery-golden, 

 and grey squamose appressed hairs, those immediately round the eyes of the front row bein g 

 very bright and forming, probably in most cases, scarlet ' irides.' 



The eyes form an area broader than long, and the posterior row is larger than the 

 anterior one ; the central pair of the anterior row are very large and close together, but not 

 contiguous, being separated by an interval a very little less than that which divides each 

 from the lateral of the same row on its side. These laterals are rather larger than the eyes 

 of the posterior row, and the small eye (on each side) of the middle row is in a straight 

 line with the inner edges of the fore lateral and hind lateral eyes, being also nearer to the 

 hind lateral than to the fore lateral eye. The height of the clypeus is equal to the diameter 

 of one of the fore central eyes. 



The legs are strong and moderately long. Their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3 ; they are of 

 a pale- yellowish colour, furnished thickly with hairs, bristles, and spines. Some of the hairs 

 are squamose and appressed, others long and prominent, especially on the first pair ; those 

 beneath the tarsi and metatarsi are the most numerous, and black, the rest being mostly grey 

 or sandy-coloured. The terminal tarsal claws have a claw-tuft beneath them, and are long 

 and slender, especially those of the fourth pair ; these have only 1 3 minute teeth about the 

 middle of the under side ; on some, if not all, of the other legs, even these denticulations 

 appear to be wanting. The legs of the first pair are considerably the strongest, while those 

 of the fourth pair are much the longest. 



The palpi are short and strong, similar in colour to the legs, and furnished with long (as 

 well as some shorter squamose) grey hairs ; the radial joint is shorter and less strong than the 

 cubital, and its fore extremity on the outer side is produced into a not very long, tapering, 

 sharp-pointed, curved projection whose extremity is of a deep reddish-brown colour ; the 

 digital joint is of great length, the base is of a somewhat angular shape, and the fore part is 

 produced into a long cylindrical curved form ; the palpal organs are bulbous, tumid, placed 

 chiefly beneath the hinder part of the digital joint, and encircled at their base and round the 

 inner side by a long, strongish, tapering spine, which runs more or less closely alongside the 

 inner margin of the digital joint, and forms a very conspicuous and characteristic feature of 

 the species. 



The falces are short and straight, placed considerably backwards, and of a dark yellow- 

 brown colour. 



The sternum is small, oval, yellow-brown, and clothed with coarse grey hairs. 

 The maxilla are short and almost touch, at their extremities, over the labium these 

 parts are yellow-brown, paler at the extremities of the former and the apex of the latter. 



The abdomen is oval, of a yellowish-brown colour with an indistinct dark brown stripe 

 along the middle of the fore part of the upper side, and clothed pretty densely with short 

 squamose, mixed yellowish, grey, sandy, and shining coppery hairs ; the under side is of a 

 pale dull brownish-yellow hue, clothed with grey, squamose hairs. 



The female is larger than the male, but resembles that sex in colours and other general 

 sharacters. It is probable that a series of examples would show, in some instances, a more . 

 or less distinct pattern on the upper side of the abdomen, depending on the distribution of 

 the colours of the hairs, which are subject to much variation in different individuals of the 

 same species in this group. Traces of this pattern in brown blotches and markings are 

 visible in the female. The 'palpi, however, are so characteristic in the adult male that the 

 species can hardly be mistaken for any other. 



B 1 



