1899.] AND SPIDERS FROM TROPICAL WEST AFRICA. 863 



Loc. Sierra Leone {Surg.-Capt. Clements); Benito River {G. L. 

 Bates). 



The web of this spider has been thus described by Surg.-Capt. 

 Clements : — "Kg. 71 is from a photograph of a web which had a 

 height of between 6 and 7 feet. There Avere some half-dozen of 

 thein built in a partiality cleared space in the forest. The bottom 

 part of the web is in the form of an inverted widely-spread funnel, 

 the top being truncated, leaving a circular aperture of three 

 quarters of an inch in diameter. The spider lived beneath the 

 cone, and gained access to the upper portions of his snare by the 

 hole in its top. Numerous threads arose from the funnel and 

 were attached to an overhanging branch more than 6 feet above." 

 (' Science Gossip,' 1893, p. 116, fig. 71.) 



It appears to me to be not improbable that this species is based 

 upon adult examples of that which Lucas described as Dolomedes 

 exilipes. 



Genus Phal^ea Simon. 



Phal^a ferox, sp. n. (Plate LV. fig. 6, 6 a.) 



Colour. Carapace ochre-yellow, sparsely clothed with yellowish 

 hairs, with a narrow blackish-grey margin, some white hairs at the 

 sides of the head and reddish hairs between the eyes ; legs ochre- 

 yellow, clothed with ashy-grey hairs, which become blacker towards 

 the extremities ; mandibles black, scantly clothed with yellowish- 

 grey hairs ; sternum blackish, clothed, like the maxilla and labium, 

 with black hairs ; upper surface and sides of abdomeu clothed 

 with reddish-yellow hairs, its lower surface with greyish-black 

 hairs. 



Carapace about one-fourth longer than broad, its length about 

 equal to that of tibia of 2nd leg and to protarsus of 1st and 4th 

 legs and to femur, patella, tibia, and half the tarsus of the palp ; 

 its width equal to tibia or protarsus of 3rd leg and almost equal 

 to patella, tibia, and tarsus of palp. Cephalic region high, convexly 

 rounded from before backwards and from side to side ; ocular 

 quadrangle much longer than wide, parallel-sided, the eyes sub- 

 equal and about a diameter apart, the distance between an anterior 

 and a posterior median of the same side equal to about two 

 diameters, anterior and posterior laterals of either side more than 

 twice as far apart as anterior and posterior medians ; anterior and 

 posterior laterals situated on small tubercles ; anterior laterals 

 about their own diameter above the edge of the clypeus ; anterior 

 medians about their diameter above it. 



Mandibles long ; the fang-groove armed with four teeth along its 

 posterior edge. 



Legs long and strong, 1, 2, 3, 4 ; the 1st more than four times 

 as long as the carapace, measured from base of femur; patellae 

 unspined, except for a setiform spinule at the extremity of the 

 upperside ; tibiae of 1st and 2nd armed with 4 pairs of spines 

 below and 2 behind and 2 in front ; tibiae of 3rd and 4th with 



56* 



