XV CLASSIFICATION 40 I 



Hersilia includes nine species native to Africa and Asia. Tama 

 is the only genus represented in the New World, two of its species 

 being found in South America, while others inhabit Africa, Asia, 

 and Australia. Another genus, Hersiliola, is principally African, 

 but extends into Spain. 



Fam. 21. Pholcidae. — This is another very well - marked 

 family. The most striking peculiarity of its members is the 

 possession of extremely long and thin legs, the metatarsi being 

 especially elongated, and the tarsi furnished with several false 

 articulations. 



The eyes are also very characteristic. They are usually eight 

 in number, the two anterior median eyes being black, while the 

 other six are white, and arranged in lateral groups of three, some- 

 times on prominences or stalks. The abdomen is sometimes nearly 

 globular, but more often long and cylindrical. Most of the 

 genera, which, including several new genera lately established by 

 Simon, number more than twenty, are poor in species, but enjoy 

 a very wide distribution. This is explained by the fact that 

 many of them live in cellars and outhouses. This is the case 

 with the genus Pholcus, of which the sole English species Ph. 

 •phalangioides is a perfect nuisance in buildings in the most 

 southern parts of the country, " spinning large sheets of irregular 

 webs in the corners and angles, and adding to them year by 

 year." -^ Other genera are Artema (Africa, South Asia, Polynesia, 

 America), which includes the largest examples, and Spermophora, 

 a six-eyed genus whose few species are widely distributed. 



Fam. 22. Theridiidae. — Sedentary spiders, usually ivith 

 feeble chelicerae and, relatively large abdomen. Snare irregular. 



The Theridiidae, as here understood, are a very extensive 

 family, and more than half the British spiders (about 270 

 species) are included within it. This family and the next present 

 unusual difficulties of treatment, and there is great divergence 

 of opinion as to the most satisfactory way of dealing with them. 

 This is chiefly due to the fact that, notwithstanding an infinite 

 variation of facies, important points of structure are wonderfully 

 uniform throughout both the two groups, while any differences 

 that do occur are bridged over by intermediate forms which merge 

 into each other. 



Simon ^ has become so impressed with the difficulty of drawing 

 1 Pickard-Cambridge, Spiders of Dorset, p. 77. ^ Sist. Nat. des Ar. i. p. 594. 



VOL. IV 2d 



