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



and are turned outwards. The falces are short and not very strong ; 

 they project in the same plane as the clypeus ; and their colour is 

 yellow, with a dusky blackish -brown longitudinal line, or bar, on 

 the upperside of each, in continuation of the bars on the clypeus. 

 The maxillae are rather long and strong ; they project beyond the 

 extremities of the falces, are rather hollow on their outer margins, 

 and almost meet over the labium, which is about equal in breadth 

 and height, and has its apex somewhat round-pointed. These parts 

 are similar in colour to the legs and palpi. The sternum is large, 

 and of an elongate heart-shape ; its colour is yellow, suffused with 

 dusky, except a longitudinal central bar-like patch. 



The abdomen is exceedingly produced behind, where it is long, 

 slender, slightly sinuous in form, and tapers to a blunt point, which 

 is armed with a pale curved (and apparently corneous) process, curv- 

 ing backwards and downwards ; near this, on the underside, are 

 four small nipple-like prominences, in form of a quadrangle. The 

 spinners are not remarkable in any way, but the portion of the abdo- 

 men behind them is three times the length of that in front ; the 

 abdomen is of a dusky colour, almost completely covered by large 

 spots or blotches of a silvery yellowish white, looking like patches 

 of body-colour laid on, and the intersections of these spots form a 

 kind of veining or network ; a broad, tapering, brown band, with a 

 prominent point on each side, occupies the central longitudinal line 

 of the fore part ; the fine point of this band is black, and is directed 

 backwards ; two or three other short black and brown lines follow 

 this. On the underside, between the spinners and the extremity 

 of the abdomen, is a broad somewhat golden yellow-brown band, 

 which tapers to a point at rather more than halfway to the terminal 

 curved process. On the sides of this produced portion of the abdo- 

 men are also two or three small black dots. 



An adult male of this exceedingly interesting and remarkable- 

 looking Spider was found in webs of Epe'ira opuntice (Duf.), on 

 prickly pears, at Beirut ; but whether inhabiting these webs in a 

 quasiparasitic state (like Spiders of the next genus, ArgyroJes), I 

 was unable to ascertain ; it certainly has a close affinity to them, as 

 also to Theridion ; but its peculiar form of abdomen, as well as the 

 form of the cephalothorax and the position of the eyes, sufficiently 

 confirm the goodness of the genus Ariadne, founded by Doleschall 

 on a still more remarkably characteristic form found in Amboina, 

 Ariadne Jlugellvm, in which the hinder part of the abdomen is drawn 

 out, in a form resembling the lash of a whip, to more than fifteen 

 times the length of the cephalothorax. The name given to the 

 genus by Doleschall, Ariadne, having previously been conferred by 

 Savigny on a genus of Dysderides, has been changed to Ariamne by 

 Dr. Thorell (Europ. Spid. pp. 37, 63). The Theridion Jictilium 

 (Hentz, Boston Journ. Nat. Hist. vol. vi. p. 282), found in Ala- 

 bama, U. S., is evidently of this genus, and nearly allied to A. lon- 

 gieavdata. I have received, both from Bombay and Ceylon (from 

 Major Hobson and Mr. Thwaites), examples of the female of a spe- 

 cies exceedingly closely allied to, if not identical with, the present. 



