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



they are seated, are a remarkable and very distinguishing character 

 of the species. 



Drassus mondulcs, sp. nov. (Plate XV. fig. 11.) 



Female adult, length 2\ lines. 



The whole of the fore part of this Spider, which is of ordinary 

 form and structure, is of a deep yellow-brown colour. The cephalo- 

 thorax is clothed with a short, yellowish pubescence. The abdomen 

 is broad oblong-oval in form, and of a dark hlackish-brown colour, 

 clothed with a somewhat golden-tinged pubescence. The eyes of 

 the hind central pair are oval and near together, but not contiguous ; 

 those of each lateral pair are wide apart, but nearer together than 

 those of the hind and fore central pairs ; those of the fore central 

 pair are rather large, and each is contiguous to the lateral of the 

 same row on its side, but they are separate, though not very widely, 

 from each other. The legs are short and strong, their relative length 

 4, 1,2, 3, and furnished with hairs, and on those of the two hinder 

 pairs are a few spines. The falces are strong, prominent at their 

 base in front ; and their upper surface is transversely, but not strongly, 

 rugulose. The maxillae are curved over the labium, and are trans- 

 versely impressed in the middle. The sternum is thickly set with 

 minute punctures, from which fine hairs appear to issue ; the genital 

 aperture is small, and arched over longitudinally by a sort of duplex 

 red-brown septum, which diverges on either side at the hinder ex- 

 tremity ; but, like this portion of most female Spiders, no mere 

 description can possibly give an accurate idea of its form and struc- 

 ture ; this can only be done by a carefully drawn and magnified 

 sketch of that part. 



Of this Spider, which is allied to D. sericeus (Bl.), but is much 

 smaller and of quite a different colour, an adult female was taken 

 under a stone on the road from Jerusalem to Nazareth, and another 

 in a similar situation on the plains of the Jordan. 



An adult male and female were found at Cairo among debris of an 

 old wall, in 1864. The male resembles the female in colour ; but the 

 abdomen had the appearance of being thickly marked above with 

 long, closely set, longitudinal, wavy strise, of a deep blackish brown 

 on a dull yellow-brown ground-colour, except in the central line of 

 the hinder part, where they are shorter and transverse ; the fore 

 extremity of the upperside is occupied by a somewhat quadrate, 

 coriaceous, bare and shining red- brown patch, which is narrowest 

 behind; succeeding this are three pairs of yellowish impressed spots, 

 with a red-brown point in the centre of each ; those of the middle 

 pair are nearer together than those of the other pairs ; and the hinder 

 pair is much further from the second than the second pair is from 

 the first; and the six spots thus form two longitudinal curved lines, 

 the curves of which are directed towards each other. The pulpi (of 

 the male) are moderately long and strong ; the radial is shorter than 

 the cubital joint, and is furnished at its outer extremity with a small, 

 red-brown, pointed and rather prominent, corneous apophysis; the 

 digital joint is large aud of a pointed oval form ; the palpal organs 



