716 MR. F, 0. PICKARD CAMBRIDGE ON [June 16, 
7. On the Theraphoside of the Lower Amazons: being an 
Account of the new Genera and Species of this Group 
of Spiders discovered during the Expedition of the 
Steamship ‘Faraday’ up the River Amazons. By 
Frepx. O. Pickarp Camsripes, B.A,’ 
[Received June 16, 1896.] 
(Plates XXXIII.-XXXYV.) 
The Spiders described in the present paper form a first small 
instalment of the collection made by Mr. Austen and myself during 
our expedition up the Lower Amazons in the s.s. ‘ Faraday,’ under 
the charge of Mr. Alexander Siemens. The idea of publishing 
the zoological results of the expedition in book-form by the 
Museum of Natural History has, I believe, been definitely 
abandoned. This being the case, 1 have availed myself of the 
generosity of tbis Society, and shall endeavour to publish my 
account of the Araneidea in small sections, as opportunity offers. 
The identification of members of this order is by no means the 
easy matter one would suppose; for not only does the material 
itself offer great difficulties, but almost every point of classifica- 
tion has to be reinvestigated ab initio. 
- Of the total number of species represented in the collection 
I am, of course, unable to speak with certainty at present, but I 
should probably be within the mark if I were to estimate it at 
about 200. How many of these may be new it is impossible to 
say, though they will scarcely perhaps bear the proportion of 
eleven new species to fourteen described, as has been the case in 
the present paper in the family Theraphoside. 
The district of the Amazon Valley may be broadly divided into 
three fairly well-marked regions. First, the alluvial region of the 
river itself, including the countless islands and vast tracks of 
luxuriant river-margin. 
Second, the higher and drier Campos districts, sandy regions 
clothed with grass and spangled with flowers soon after the com- 
mencement of the rainy season, about the month of March or 
April. 
Third, that vast region significantly termed by the natives “Terra 
Firma,” clothed for hundreds and hundreds of square miles by the 
impenetrable forest. 
And to these three regions I must add what I may term the 
“Lago district,”—the Lake district so-called—where acres of 
rushes, sedge-grass, and water-weeds furnish a habitat frequented 
by a fauna evidently peculiar. Here almost every form seems 
to be adapted for a semi-amphibious existence. Large Spiders 
1 Communicated by the Secretary. 
