116 Description of an American Spider. 



reins for some years, to collectors, to observers, and even to mak- 

 ers of species, in order to encourage them, and thus induce them 

 to increase greatly the mass of materials. In this latter relation, 

 no author has rendered more eminent services to science than 

 Mr. Lea, in his first volume, which is already in your library, and 

 also in his second, of which I am going to exhibit to you briefly, 

 the contents. Ch. Des Moulins. 



Art. XII. — Description of an American Spider, constituting a 

 new sub-genus, of the tribe Incequitelce of Latreille ; by Prof. 

 N. M. Hentz, Florence, Ala. 



[Read before the Yale Natural-History Society, April 28, 1841.] 



The genus Aranea of Linnaeus, like most of the genera estab- 

 lished by that great man, is now in fact an extensive family of 

 the animal kingdom. Walckenaer and Latreille subdivided it, 

 and at once classified the numerous species known to them^ in an 

 admirable order. We may add the species since discovered and 

 such subgenera as were not known to those authors, without ma- 

 terially altering their superstructure. But when the work is ac- 

 complished, and all nature is described by man, the number of 

 species included in the common word spider, will be truly amaz- 

 ing. Walckenaer enumerated 260 species thirty four years ago, 

 and Latreille could easily have doubled the catalogue, if the 

 number of species had been mentioned in the last edition of the 

 Regne Animal. The writer of this paper, in the course of twen- 

 ty years, has, at stolen hours, collected and described 147 species ; 

 but he is convinced that fifty more could be added ; as he has 

 not explored the vast peninsula of Florida, nor any portion of Lou- 

 isiana. Two hundred species, therefore, would be a low esti- 

 mate of the number of spiders inhabiting the United States, not 

 including the territories yet unoccupied by civilized men. It is 

 obvious that the number of species throughout the world will 

 amount to more than two thousand, when the natural history of 

 all countries is complete. It is equally obvious that the rapidly 

 increasing number of new species requires subdivisions, when it is 

 practicable to make them. The subgenus now proposed is indis- 

 pensable, as the species cannot be classed under any existing gen- 



