1872.] SPIDERS OF PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 279 



Genus Argyrodes (Sim.). 



Argyrodes epeir^:, Sim. An. Soc. Ent. Fr. 4 c ser. tom.vi. p. 282, 

 pi. 4. figs. 1-9. 



Numerous examples of both sexes, adult and immature, of this 

 curious little Spider were found in webs of E. opuntice at Tiberias. 

 Subsequently it was found by M. Simon in a similar situation in 

 Spain, and by him described and the genus characterized in 1866 

 (An. Soc. Ent. Fr. loc. cit. supra). It appeared to have spun its own 

 little irregular snares among the mazes of the JEpeira's webs, in 

 which it sat, looking like a little morsel of dead stuff, and perhaps 

 deluding the other Spiders into a belief that it was so, and thus 

 escaping being devoured ; at any rate all seemed to live together in 

 perfect harmony. The little pear-shaped long-stemmed cocoons 

 of the Argyrodes were fastened to the lines of the web ; from most 

 of these, however (which I placed in a pill-box), there emerged in 

 a few weeks a small hymenopterous parasite, one only from each 

 cocoon. 



Argyrodes syriaca, sp. nov. (Plate XIII. fig. 10.) 



Male adult, length If line ; female adult, 2| lines. 



This very distinct species, which resembles the typical forms of 

 the genus in the exceedingly convex and (in profile) somewhat tri- 

 angular-shaped abdomen, may easily be distinguished by the form of 

 the hinder extremity of the abdomen, which is obtusely produced 

 and divided into four short nipple-shaped divergent prominences. 

 It is of a red-brown colour, marked with black, and mottled with 

 silvery-yellow lines, spots, and markings ; and in the female the 

 sides are, in some instances, almost entirety black ; in both sexes 

 a deep-brown or black longitudinal marking, with an angular 

 prominent point on either side, occupies the central line of the 

 fore side. 



The cephalothorax has the thoracic portion higher than the caput ; 

 it is of a deep black red-brown colour, and that of the male is pro- 

 duced in front into a somewhat pointed conical eminence directed 

 forwards ; around the base of this eminence the eyes are placed on 

 tubercles, and from the centre of the clypeus, which is prominent, 

 there arises a small blunt-pointed, slightly tapering eminence, which, 

 as well as that betweeu the eyes, is furnished with bristly hairs ; 

 four central eyes form a largish square ; and on either side is a lateral 

 pair, the eyes of each of which are slightly oblique and contiguous to 

 each other ; the fore central eyes are the largest, dark-coloured, and, 

 if any thing, wider apart than those of the hind central pair ; the 

 rest are of a pearl-white colour ; each of the fore central eyes is near, 

 but not contiguous, to the fore lateral on its side. The legs are 

 long, slender, and furnished sparingly with fine hairs ; they are of a 

 dull yellow colour, somewhat diversely and obscurely clouded, and 

 banded with dark yellow-brown of several hues. 



The palpi are short, and of a deep black -brown tinged with reddish; 

 the radial and cubital joints are of about equal length ; the former 



