212 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON THE [Feb. 20, 



These facts might support Lord Monboddo's theory of the gradual 

 disappearance of tails ! 



5. General List of the Spiders of Palestine and Syria, with 

 Descriptions of numerous new Species and Characters 

 of two new Genera. By the Rev. O. P. Cambridge, 

 M.A., C.M.Z.S. 



[Received February 2, 1872.] 

 (Plates XIII.-XVI.) 



The following list and descriptions have been prepared from a 

 collection of Araneidea made by myself during a two-months' ride 

 through the Holy Land, between the 16th of March and the 18th 

 of May 1865. 



A continuous journey on horseback is not favourable for collect- 

 ing objects of natural history ; but riding through Palestine is not 

 a very rapid affair, and it was therefore usually possible to keep up 

 on foot with the general cavalcade, and so to collect insects and 

 spiders &c. by the way during the greater part of the day. By 

 these means, and by a rather more lengthened sojourn than eastern 

 travellers are commonly in the habit of making on the Jordan 

 Plains, my collection of insects in general amounted to about 700 

 species of all orders, and of Spiders (Araneidea) to about 300 spe- 

 cies ; of these last, however, some . few were indeterminable from 

 being in an immature state, 2/8 being determinable. Besides these, 

 various species (not yet worked out) of other orders of Arachnida 

 were captured, viz. : — Acaridea, Phalangidea, Solpugidea, and Scor- 

 pionidea. The general report of Palestine, either as an entomo- 

 logical or arachnological district, can scarcely be favourable ; except 

 in the more wooded localities, the country is too dry and barren, 

 and it required far harder work to search for either insects or Spiders 

 than is commonly necessary in most districts of Europe. I fre- 

 quently worked for half an hour without during that time finding a 

 single Spider ; and the results of a day's work would often be no 

 more than a dozen species, while numbers of the species found were 

 represented by only single examples, or at most by one of each sex. 

 About one half (136) of the species of Spiders found were met with 

 on the plains of the Jordan, and, for the most part, within a circuit 

 of about a mile from Elisha's Well (Ain es Sultan). A sojourn there 

 of eight or nine days enabled me to work this district pretty closely ; 

 of the Spiders found there, 73 species were not found elsewhere, 

 though probably many of them might be if other parts were equally 

 well searched. 



The following analysis of the collection will give some idea of the 

 distribution of the 278 determined species among the different fami- 

 lies and genera of Araneidea : — 



