ON NEW AND RAIIE BRITISH SPIDERS. 13 



curved), project underneath at their extremity; and at 

 their base oil the outer side is a curved obtuse and tolerably con- 

 spicuous one ; a corresponding process is found in numerous 

 species of Neriene and Linypkia and I have always considered 

 it to be attached to tho digital joint in connection, more or less 

 close, with the palpal organs, but Mr. Emerton considers it to bo 

 attached beneath the radial joint ; its form is always specific, and 

 often affords one of the best distinguishing specific characters 

 nothing but a very accurate magnified drawing could satisfactor- 

 ily explain the characteristic distinctions in the form of this pro- 

 cess in different species. The palpi are similar to the legs in 

 colour, excepting the radial and digital joints, which are strongly 

 tinged with black-brown. 



The abdomen is oval, black, glossy, thinly clothed with fine 

 hairs, and (in the male) projects scarcely at all over the base of 

 the cephalo-thorax. Tho female only differs from the male 

 in being slightly larger and the legs shorter; the impress, however, 

 of the thoracic indentation appears stronger, so that there is a 

 somewhat more notch-like impression when looked at in profile ; 

 the form of the genital aperture is characteristic, but needs' the 

 figure to explain it. The falces are straight and want the 

 tooth in front. 



T hree males and two females were found by F. 0. P. Cam- 

 bridge, under stones and seaweed at Mawnan, near Falmouth, in 

 Cornwall. This spider appears to be nearly allied to Neriene 

 reproba, Cambr. ; but the male differs in the structure of the 

 palpi, and the female in that of the genital aperture. 



NERIENE FESTINANS, sp. n. PI. 1. fig. 2. 



Adult male, length one-tenth of an inch. 



The cephalo-thorax, lookedat directly from above,is very nearly 

 round, but the clypeus projects at the lower margin in a blunt 

 pointed form ; looked at in profile the caput is not raised above 

 the thoracic level, but the profile line shews a distinct shallow 

 notch or depression between the caput and thorax. It is of a 

 dark yellow-brownish hue with a margin, converging lines and 



