LUTZ, LItST OF GREAT F.li AXTfLL/LAX i<PIDERS 101 



P1SAURID.E 



The females of these, like those of the Lycosids, carry their egg sacs 

 about with them. Some species also build a "nursery" for the newly 

 hatched young, but construct no snare. 



Thanatidius has one species in the Amazon region. The only other 

 one knoA\T^i is duhius (Hentz), Avhich has been reported from f North 

 Carolina. Alabama, Florida and Cuba (Havana). 



Thaumasia, as now constituted, is found only in the warmer parts of 

 America. T. marginella (C. Koch) Simon is usually placed in Dolo- 

 medes and is recorded from Colombia, Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Vieques 

 and possibly Porto Rico. AYe found it at Cabanas, Pinar del Rio and 

 Baiios San Yincente, Cuba. Mr. Banks has written me that he has seen 

 it from Ha\'ana, Cuba. As he considers this species to be a Dolomedes, 

 it may be that the immature specimens taken by us at Pinar del Rio and 

 identilled by him as Dolomedes belong to this species. As now construed, 

 there are no records for Dolomedes in the Antilles. 



Lycosids 



The relatively poor development in the Antilles of this fairly large 

 family of "ground spiders'' seems to accord with the distribution of 

 Coleoptera (see Leng and Mutchler, 1914), among which the ground 

 forms are more poorly represented than the arboreal ones. Bates, in his 

 "Naturalist on the River Amazons," says: "It is vain to look for the 

 Geodephaga, or carnivorous beetles, under stones, or anywhere, indeed, in 

 open, sunny, places. The terrestrial forms of this interesting family, 

 which abound in England and temperate countries generally, are scarce 

 in the neighborhood of Para — in fact, I met with only four or five spe- 

 cies : on the other hand, the purely arboreal kinds were rather nmnerous. 

 The contrary of this happens in northern latitudes, where the great ma- 

 jority of the species and genera are exclusively terrestrial. . . . The 

 remarkable scarcity of ground beetles is doubtless attributable to the 

 number of ants and Termites which people every inch of surface in all 

 shady places and Avhich would most likely destroy the larvae of Coleop- 

 tera. These active creatures have the same functions as Coleoptera, and 

 thus render their existence unnecessary. The large proportion of climb- 

 ing forms of carnivorous beetles is an interesting fact, because it affords 

 another instance of the arboreal character which animal forms tend to 

 assume in equinoctial America, a circumstance which points to the slow 

 adaptation of the Famia to a forest-clad country, throughout an immense 

 lapse of geological time." The last suggestion, in a modified form, seems 



