i882.J SPIDERS FROM MADAGASCAR. 765 



scattered bristles upon the legs and a narrow baud at the extremities 

 of the joints below black ; I can trace no black spines upon the 

 genual joints ; the palpi are pale yellow, as also are the maxillae, 

 labium, and sternum. The abdomen above and at the sides is of a 

 shining silver colour, the dorsal region being ornamented by a broad 

 brown cross, the arms of which are expanded at the extremities ; the 

 sides are reticulated with dark brown, and thus divided up into 

 sharply defined plates, somewhat as in T. margaritifera ; the ventral 

 surface is dirty yellow. 



Cephalothorax oval, strongly indented behind the caput, which 

 ascends obliquely from the thoracic region : the eyes are arranged 

 much as in T. margaritifera ; but the anterior pair are smaller and 

 closer together, so that the six remaining eyes, which are larger, 

 form triangular groups of thi'ee contiguous eyes on each side : the 

 legs are long, slender, sparsely setose, their relative length 4, 1, 2, 

 3 ; the palpi are moderately long and cylindrical, the falces also 

 cylindrical. The abdomen is less acute at the dorsal angle than in 

 T. margaritifera, and viewed from behind is seen to be obtusely 

 tuberculated at the sides just below the apex ; the terminal angle, 

 however, is decidedly more acute; the posterior margin is also much 

 less oblique ; the bristles upon the abdomen are confined to the 

 ventral surface. Length 5 millim. 



Central Madagascar and east coast. 



The articulations of tibiae of the second and third pair of legs are 

 sometimes not banded with carmine. 



Epeirid.^. 

 Meta, Koch. 

 4. Meta splendida, sp. n. (Plate LVII. figs. 3, 3 a, b.) 

 (S $ . Cephalothorax, palpi, front of falces, and legs fulvous : 

 apex of falces, labium, and sternum piceous ; maxillae castaneous. 

 Abdomen above bright metallic silvery, with two large elongated 

 blackish patches in front, behind which is a broad transverse crescent- 

 shaped, blackish-edged golden band, united in the centre by a short 

 pedicle to a broad longitudinal dorsal band of the same colour, 

 streaked obliquely on each side with blackish and spotted with 

 silver' ; sides and ventral surface brown, dark and olivaceous when 

 dry, paler in spirit, with four longitudinal silver stripes, two sub- 

 dorsal and two ventral, but all four lateral. 



Cephalothorax large, depressed, expanded behind the caput; 

 sutural impression strongly defined, V-shaped ; eyes black, rather 

 small, arranged across the front of the caput ; the central eyes slightly 

 larger than the lateral, in the form of a quadrangle, the anterior eyes 

 scarcely perceptibly nearer together than the posterior ones, from 

 which they are separated by a distinctly greater interval than the 

 posterior eyes from one another ; lateral eyes contiguous, one behind 

 the other, much less obliquely than in M. Simon's figure (Hist. Nat. 



''■ In some examples these markings are pale and brassy, the extremities of 

 the crescent are also often continued round so as to join the dorsal band. 



