A Revision of the Oencra of the Funiili/ Liparulfo. 119 



evidenco. Keferetice lins already heoii niado to the very 

 striking reseniblaiice between Liphislius and Frotoli/coaa, in 

 respect of the lengths of the legs and the segniunted abdu- 

 nien ; and this is a point whicli scarcely needs emphasizing. 

 We find, in I'tVoct, one single small family of living spiders 

 closely aimihir to the type of the Carbotiiferous strata — a 

 type from which every fither family has widely departed. 



These spiders have been reported only from Penang and 

 Sumatra, and, since their unusual form would nttrrct the atten- 

 tion of any naturalist, we may confidently assunie that they 

 occur nowhere else. This fact is in itself surprising, and 

 suggests that in the West Indies alone in the habitable worhl 

 JJj'/tistiun lias found an environment in wliicli it could j>ersist 

 unchanged for geological ages. It is in accordance with this 

 fact to find that Sumatran fauna is entirely different from 

 that of Java, across the narrow Straits of Sunda ; for example, 

 it includes a peculiar species of elephant, which is not found 

 in Java, while a groat ape — Siamanga melalojjhus — is peculiar 

 to this island. 



We may therefore conclude that the Liphistioidre are a 

 family of spiders which, while showing very definite resem- 

 blances to several of the Theraphosai, are in most ways a 

 survival of an extremely primitive type; and we tender a 

 claim that, when comj)letely studied, tiiey will hold among 

 primitive animals an imporUint position. 



\j.—A Revision of the Genera of the Family Liparid;o. By 

 Colonel C. Swinhoic, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S., 

 Member of the Entomological Society of France and of 

 the Bombay Natural History Society. 



Family Liparidae. 



This family has been niucli neglected by entomologists ; 

 i.ord Rothschild's excellent paper in Nov. Zool. (xxiv. p. 350, 

 1'J17) shows that a revision of the family is very much 

 needed. 



Sir George Hampson in his 'Moths of India' sinks 

 Liparidje to Lymantriidic, because Liparis was erected by 

 Artedi for a genus of fishes in 1738, but by the rules of 

 nomenclature the International Commission decided that 

 1758, the date of the tenth edition of Liuuieus's ' S}stema 



