1876.] REV, O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 589 



most row are equally separated from each other, the four central 

 eyes describing a square whose fore side is shorter than the rest : the 

 interval between those of each lateral pair is about equal to the 

 diameter of one of them. 



The legs are long, and moderate in strength ; their relative length 

 is apparently 2, 1, 4, 3, or 2, 4, 1,3; their colour is yellow, the under- 

 sides of the femora of the first and second pairs being speckled with 

 small red-brown spots, chiefly disposed in two longitudinal parallel 

 lines ; they are furnished with hairs and a few long spines (of different 

 lengths) ; and the metatarsi and tarsi are furnished beneath with a 

 scopula. 



The palpi are moderately long and strong; they are similar to the 

 legs in colour ; the humeral joints are furnished with a few spine- 

 like bristles towards the fore extremity on the upperside ; and there 

 are a few finer long bristles on the other joints : the radial joint is 

 double the length of the cubital, and has a tolerably long, slightly 

 curved, deep red-brown and rather slender apophysis at its extremity 

 on the outer side ; this apophysis is of a slightly tapering form, but 

 is obtusely pointed : the digital joint is elongate-oval in form, rather 

 longer than the radial and cubital joints together ; its colour is yellow- 

 brown ; and it is hairy, terminating in a single small curved claw : 

 the palpal organs are small and simple, and, although characteristic, 

 present no noteworthy processes, nor do they extend more than 

 halfway towards the extremity of the joint. 



The falces are moderate in length and strength, straight, though 

 projecting a little forwards, and rounded in profile ; they are of a 

 yellow-brown colour, paler on their inner sides towards the ex- 

 tremity. 



The maxilla are moderately long and strong, nearly straight, and 

 roundly truncated at their extremities, their colour is dull yellow- 

 brown, but pale at the extremities. 



The labium is very short and small, and nearly semicircular in 

 form, of a dull yellow-brown colour, pale at the apex ; and the 

 sternum is yellow. 



The abdomen is of an oblong-oval form ; its colour is a dull testa- 

 ceous, more or less mottled on the upperside with clearer yellow 

 cretaceous spots, and it is thinly clothed with greyish yellow hairs ; 

 an ordinary elongated, central, longitudinal yellow-brown marking, 

 defined by a margin of bright red-brown spots, occupies the fore half 

 of the upperside, and its acute termination is continued by a single 

 line of similar spots to the spinners ; a few other small spots of the 

 same colour are thinly but pretty evenly dispersed over the rest of 

 the upper surface ; the underside is immaculate. 



The female resembles the male, except in being of a stouter build ; 

 the genital aperture is small, of a somewhat heart-shaped and cha- 

 racteristic form, with a blackish red-brown corneous margin. 



An adult and an immature male and an adult female were found at the 

 roots of scattered tufts of herbage on the desert near Gebel y Silsilis, in 

 Upper Egypt. Although nearly allied to Sparassus linneei (Sav.), 

 it may be at once distinguished not only by a difference in the rela- 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1876, No. XXXIX. 39 



