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



structure of the palpal organs are visible on a careful comparison 

 with those species. 



The legs are shorter and stouter than in E. rurestris, and the 

 falces also are weaker. 



The cephalothorax is of a dull yellow-brown colour, suffused with 

 blackish ; the normal grooves and indentations are not strongly 

 marked ; and the caput scarcely rises above the thoracic level. The 

 eyes are in two curved rows of almost equal length ; the two hind 

 centrals are slightly further from each other than each is from the 

 hind lateral on its side ; the fore centrals are very near together, 

 but not quite contiguous ; those of each lateral pair are seated very 

 slightly obliquely on a tubercle ; the height of the clypeus is half 

 that of the facial space. The legs are rather short and not very 

 strong; and their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3 ; they are of a pale 

 dull yellow colour, and are furnished with hairs and a few very 

 slender bristle-like pale spines. 



The palpi are short ; the radial is very short but of the same length 

 as the cubital, and, though very slightly longer in front than beneath, 

 it has no prominence or apophysis at its extremity ; the cubital has 

 a single, erect, fine, tapering, black bristle, which issues from near 

 its fore extremity on the upperside ; the palpal organs are simple, 

 and consist of a single, large, roundish, corneous lobe, on the sur- 

 face of which are indistinctly visible some small spiny processes 

 and projections. The falces are moderately long, slender, and 

 slightly divergent. The maxillce are short, strong, and very slightly 

 inclined to the labium, which, owing to the adherence of some foreign 

 substance, could not be well seen. The sternum is convex, heart- 

 shaped, and with the maxillae of a blackish hue. The abdomen is 

 long-oval, very sparingly clothed with hairs, and of a dull pale 

 yellow colour suffused with blackish. 



A single example found on a dwarf shrub at Hasbeiya. 



Erigone dentata, Reuss-Wider (Mus. Senck. i. p. 229, pi. 15. 

 fig. 8), var. orientalis, Cambr. 



Adults of both sexes were found among water- weeds on the banks 

 of the stream flowing from Elisha's Well on the plains of the 

 Jordan. 



These Spiders, although exactly similar in structural detail, and no 

 doubt the same as E. dentata, appear to vary from it almost con- 

 stantly in colour and markings. Out of numerous examples taken 

 in England, very few, and those chiefly females, presented any trace 

 of even a longitudinal, central, pale band on the abdomen, the usual 

 colouring being a uniform deep black-brown ; while out of equally 

 numerous examples found in Palestine (and also in Egypt in 1864), not 

 one was of that normal European colour, most of them being of a pale 

 yellow with a stronger or weaker broken longitudinal brown-black 

 band on either side of the central line of the abdomen ; in some ex- 

 amples these brown-black bands are represented merely by three 

 large spots ; the underside is also similarly marked ; only two or 

 three had the abdomen black-brown with a broad longitudinal cen- 



