FAMILY— DEASSIDES. 



j HE Drassides include most of the numerous eonibre- 

 colourod, somewhat elongate spiders, with a usually 

 rather depressed cephalo-thorax, which one often sees 

 hastily escaping on the lifting up of a large stone, block of 

 wood, or piece of loose bark. Some, however, are found 

 on shrubs and plants, and one I have never met with 

 excepting indoors — D-rassus Blachwallii Thor. Few of them, 

 excepting those of the Genus Micaria, possess any bright 

 colouring, or very distinct pattern. They are mostly hairy' 

 but not, in general, long-haired ; the legs are of moderate length, 

 usually pretty robust, and armed with spines ; the tarsi have 

 two terminal claws. The eyes are eight in number, and dis- 

 posed in four pairs, or two transverse curved lines, at the fore 

 extremity of the caput. 



GENUS MICARIA, C. L. Koch, DRASSUS Blackw. in part. 



The Genus Micaria is a curious instance of a small well-marked 

 group of most brilliantly adorned spiders among numerous others, 

 nearly all, of the most sombre hues. The spiders of this Genus are 

 small, and have th» abdomen, and often other parts also, more 

 or less thickly-covered with scale-like hairs rofleotiug bright 

 metallic tints of green, purplo, and gold. They resemblo ants 

 very closely in their slender attenuate forms, and are exceed- 

 ingly aotive, running abroad in the brightest sunshine. The 

 eyes are small, and placed in two nearly parallel curved rows, not 

 differing much in length, and the convexity of the curve 

 directed backwards. Two speoies only aro known as yet in 

 Britain ; both of them are found in Dorsetshire, and, indeed, 

 one of them is up to the present time peculiar to tho county, 

 and has not yet been found on tho continent. 



