18/6. J KEV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 561 



quent to Savigny appear merely to have followed him in his figure and 

 description. The locality given for H. caudata is "les environs du 

 Caire." On the first morning of my arrival at Cairo, in January 

 1864, I found a species of Hersilia frequent on the trunks of the trees 

 in the Esbekeyah, close in front of Zeck's hotel ; all were females, in 

 different stages of immaturity. Numerous searches there and in 

 other parts round Cairo failed to produce more than this one species, 

 which I met with again several times during the ascent of the Nile 

 to Assouan. I did not find any other species (except one, of a now 

 separated genus Hersilidia, under stones at Alexandria) during my 

 stay in Egypt. I cannot, therefore, help thinking that, in spite of very 

 manifest differences between my specimens and tiie figure and descrip- 

 tion of Hersilia caudata giveu by Walckenaer and Lucas (following 

 Savigny), the species I now record is that upou which the latter 

 author founded the genus. 



The following description of the examples I met with may perhaps 

 call the attention of araneologists to the differences noted ; and pos- 

 sibly the true II. caudata may eventually prove to be a distinct 

 species, in which case I would propose for that now described the name 

 Hersilia diver sa. 



The length of the largest immature female captured is rather over 

 3 1 lines. The colour of the cephalothorax is a deep blackish brown, 

 rather the palest along the middle line, on the hinder slope, and a 

 little above the lateral margins ; the upper part of the caput is black, 

 with a short brightish orange-yellow longitudinal streak on the hinder 

 part between the eyes of the hind central pair. The clypeus (which 

 equals in height two thirds of that of the facial space) is orange- 

 yellow above and dull yellow on its lower part, the middle of which 

 has a short longitudinal white streak with a blackish patch on each 

 side of it. This arrangement of colours gives a very distinct and diver- 

 sified appearance to the "facies," and appears to be pretty well de- 

 fined in all the examples met with (vide fig. 6 b). 



The legs are of a dull yellowish hue, marked and broadly anuulated 

 with yellow and blackish-brown ; these markings form a broken 

 longitudinal line of deepish black-brown on the fore sides of the 

 femoral joints. 



The palpi are similar to the legs in colour, and marked with 

 black-brown on their upper or fore sides. 



The abdomen is of a dull yellowish brown above, thickly punc- 

 tuated with pale yellowish points mixed with a few blackish >pots 

 here and there, chiefly near the cephalothorax, the lateral margins of 

 the upperside of the abdomen are very distinctly defined by the inner 

 edge of the black markings on the sides ; this well-defined edge is 

 denticulate or strongly crenellated ; along the middle line of the fore 

 half is a strong and very distinct black longitudinal marking, den- 

 ticulate or irregularly jagged on its edges ; this marking is broadest 

 near its middle, and comes to a blunt point about two thirds of the 

 distance from the cephalothorax to the spinners, and is followed In- 

 some broken angular bars, or chevrons, which decrease in length 

 towards the hinder extremity of the abdomen; in addition to the 



