914 | The American Naturalist. [October, 
THE HARVEST SPIDERS OF NORTH AMERICA! 
BY CLARENCE M. WEED. 
HE harvest spiders, harvest men, daddy-long-legs, or grab- 
for-gray-bears, as they are variously known in different parts 
of the United States, form a distinct family—Phalangide—of 
Arachnida, which has as yet received comparatively little attention 
at the hands of American entomologists. In zoological classi- 
fication the family belongs to the suborder Opileonea, of the order 
Arthrogastra, and sub-class Arachnida. 
The Phalangidz are at once distinguished from other Arach- 
nids by the united cephalothorax and abdomen, the long legs 
with multiarticulate tarsi, the well-developed palpi and tarsal 
claws, the five or six ventral segments, the first of which is 
abruptly contracted in front and prolonged forward between the 
coxe, and the two eyes close together upon an eminence at the 
middle of the dorsum of the cephalothorax. 
Our knowledge of American harvest spiders dates from the 
time of Thomas Say, who, in 1821, described four species under 
the genus Phalangium. Half a century later Dr. H. C. Wood re- 
described Say's species, and added eleven others to the list. Since 
then five additional species have been described by the present 
writer, who has also referred the others to their modern genera. 
During a recent study of the Phalangid of the United States, 
as represented by collections made, largely through the kindness 
of entomological friends, in thirteen widely separated States, I 
have been able to recognize all of the described species, except 
two, viz, P. grande Say, occurring in the Southern States, and 
P. exilipes Wood, from the California coast. At least four of 
our forms fall into the subfamily Schlerosomatine, which has not 
before been recognized in our fauna. One species, the P. nigrum ` 
of Say, apparently belongs to the genus Astrobunus Thorell, while 
two of Wood's species, bicolor and favosum, will apparently re- 
quire the erection of new genera to contain them, although at 
1 Read before Section F., A. A. A. S., at Indianapolis meeting. 
