M. T. Thorell on Aranea lobata. 187 



perhaps the splendid Argiope Brilnmchn'^, in the arachnoid 

 fauna of the south of Europe, now even attaining the unknown 

 northern limit of that fauna. 



When Pallas published the first or Latin edition of his 

 above-named work, he was ignorant of the habitat of A, 

 lobataj and unfortunately advanced a supposition that the 

 species was probably the same as Petiver's Araneoides Cap, 

 fasciata lutescens^ &c.t. It is, beyond a doubt, this circum- 

 stance only which has caused later writers to overlook the 

 correspondence of Olivier's A. sericea and Pallas's A. lobata ; 

 for, although the description and figures which Pallas has left 

 are not particularly well marked, they are sufficiently accurate 

 to enable any one looking at them with unprejudiced eyes to 

 recognize in A. lobata its identity with A. sericea. 



We have only to recollect that the examples which Pallas had 

 before him were preserved in spirit : in such examples the silky 

 down which covers the body is not apparent, whereas one easily 

 perceives the two dark longitudinal bands and the large black 

 transverse spots in front of the petiolus conspicuous in Pallas's 

 representation, as also the " lineae bis geminse fuscescentes 

 supra apicem abdominis subtrilobum longitudinales " of which 

 he speaks, which marks are, on the contrary, in living or dried 

 examples, more or less hidden by the silk-like covering of hair. 



Pallas states (7oc. cit,) that he met with several specimens 

 of his A. lobata "in Museo Academise Petropolitanae :" pro- 

 bably they came from Southern Russia, where this spider had 

 been already found in 1768 by Lepechin. His "Aranea se- 

 noculata thorace depresso, abdomine exovato globoso lobato, 

 punctis in dorso 4 nigris"! (which received from Grmelin, in 

 Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. 13, the name A. argentea)^ is in fact in- 

 disputably nothing else than a variety of the common A. seri- 

 ceaj which also was later observed in South Russia (Crimea) 

 by Al. V. Nordmann§. 



But, should there yet remain, in spite of the agreement of 

 the two descriptions, any doubt as to the European origin of 



* Aranea Brunnichii, Scop. (Annus V. Hist. -Nat. : 1772) = Aranea 

 fasciata, Oliv. (1789) 1. Epeira (NepMla) fasciata Auct. rec. 



t Petiver, ' Gazophylacium Naturae et Artis/ i. tab. 12. f. 11; Catalogus 

 classicus et topicus, p. 3, No. 440. 



X Lepechin, ' Tagebucli der Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des 

 Russiscnen Reiches in den Jahren 1768 u. 1769.' Uebers. von 0. W. 

 Haase. Th. i. p. 316, Taf. 16. fig. 2 (1774). (The first part of the Russian 

 original was printed in 1771). 



§ " In the Crimea I have sat for a whole hour opposite the web of the 

 beautiful Argyopes sericeus, the large female in the centre, the small male 

 at the edge of the wide-meshed web." — Nordmann, " Erstes Verzeichniss 

 der in Finnland und Lappland gefundenen Spinnen, Araneae," in Bidrag 

 till Finlands Naturkannedom, Etnograti och Statistik, \m. p. 18 (1863). 



