CAaMBRIDGE.—On the Spiders of New Zealand. 189 
curious row of short closely-set curved spiny bristles along a portion of the 
upper side of the metatarsi of the fourth pair of legs. The use of this row of 
bristles (called the calamistrum) is alluded to further on. 
The length of the legs in spiders is very various, both actually and 
relatively, and the differences between them, as well as their armature and 
terminal claws, furnish valuable characters, often generic and always 
specifically important (f. 10, 17). 
The Palpi are two (in many species leg-like) limbs of five, or (counting the 
basal piece, to which each is articulated) six joints (f. 7, 8, 9). The basal 
piece, situated immediately behind the falces, forms a maxilla (f. 8y, and 9y) 
on either side of another piece, the labium (f. 2h, апа 15A). This latter is 
various in form, and always present, except in a new and remarkable spider 
lately received from Brazil —ApAantochilus, Cambr.—in which the labium is 
wanting, the maxille in this instance closing up to each other. Within the 
labium is another portion of structure—the tongue—to which sufficient 
attention has not yet been paid by araneologists ; by the aid of this portion no 
doubt the act of swallowing the juices of insects, when expressed by the falces 
and maxille, is effected. These parts, falces, mawille, labium, and tongue, 
thus form the mouth of a spider. The таг are various in form and size, 
and, with the labium and general disposition of the eyes, furnish the most 
tangible, if not the only reliable, characters for distinguishing the genera. 
The 3rd (cubital, f. 7v, 8v, 9v) and 4th (radial, f. 7¢, 8£, 94) joints of the palpi 
in the male are (the former often, the latter generally) characterized by pro- 
minences, spiny apophyses or protuberances, which furnish some of the 
strongest and most tangible specific characters in that sex (Ё 7//); in the 
female the palpi are simple and quite pediform, generally terminating with 
a single claw. The last (or digital) joint of each palpus (in the male spider) 
is generally more or less concave (f. 8s), including in its concavity a (sometimes 
complex) congeries of lobes, spines, and spiny processes (f. 80 and 180) capable 
in some instances of being opened out as by hinges. These are not developed 
until the spider has come to maturity. Up to this period the digital joint has 
a tumid and somewhat semi-diaphanous appearance, and, although generally 
smaller, bears the same general form that it has after maturity. 
That these processes, or, as they are termed, palpal organs, are intimately 
connected with the process of reproduction—the fecundation of the female 
spider—is certain ; but the mode of their efficiency can hardly be said to have 
been even yet satisfactorily determined. In the female the palpus terminates 
generally with a single claw, often pectinated ; instances, however, are frequent 
of the absence of any terminal palpal claw. Between the plates of the 
spiracles, and close to the fore-extremity of the abdomen on the under side, is 
placed the external aperature of the female generative organs ; this aperture 
El 
