1872.] SPIDERS OF PALESTINE AND SYRIA. '287 



Genus Ero (Koch). 



Ero tuberculata, Degeer, Uebers. vii. p. 93. n. 6, tab. 13. 

 figs. 1-9. 



An adult male and females were found under stones and among 

 debris of various kinds near Jericho and at Nazareth. 



Genus Ctenophora (Blackw.). 



Ctenophora monticola, Bl. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. June 1870. 



An adult and immature females of this striking species were 

 found in irregular snares among prickly pears at Beirut. 



Subsequently to this, the species has been described by Mr. 

 Black wall from Sicilian examples, and a genus (Ctenophora) formed 

 for its reception. Mr. Blackwall has also constituted a separate 

 family for this genus and Galena (Koch), with which it is un- 

 doubtedly connected. If this family should eventually stand, the 

 genus Ero ought, it seems to me, to be added to it ; for the Spiders 

 constituting the genus Ero are characterized by an exceedingly 

 similar armature of the fore legs to that upon which Mr. Blackwall 

 chiefly bases the establishment of the family ; between Ero and Cteno- 

 phora there is also great general similarity of form and structure. 



Several striking new species of Ctenophora have lately been 

 received from Ceylon, where they were captured by native workmen, 

 among numerous other Spiders, in the Royal Botanic Gardens. 



Genus Lathrodectus (Walck.). 



Lathrodectus erebus, Savigny, Arachn. d'Egypte, pi. 3. fig. 9. 



Adult females of this fine Spider were found beneath stones near 

 Jericho and at Jerusalem. 



Lathrodectus pallidus, sp. nov. 



Female adult, length 5| lines ; height of abdomen 4|. 



This species is nearly equal to L. erebus in size, and resembles it 

 in general form and structure ; but it may at once be distinguished 

 by its colour and markings, and by the almost perfect smoothness 

 of the abdomen, which in L. erebus is thickly clothed with hairs 

 and short curved bristles. 



The colour of the cephalothorax i3 yellow-brown, that of the 

 palpi and legs yellowish ; the tarsi, metatarsi, tibiae, and genua of 

 the latter, as well as the digital joints of the former, being deeply 

 suffused with dark yellow-brown. 



The falces are dark brown tinged with reddish ; the maxillee and 

 labium are dark yellow-brown, the extremities of the maxillae and 

 apex of the labium yellow ; the sternum also is yellow-brown, equally 

 divided by a tapering longitudinal band, whose point is directed 

 backwards. 



The abdomen is of a creamy yellow-white colour, with four deep- 

 red-brown spots forming an oblong about the centre of the upper- 



