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side, is a dull yellowish tinged with greenish-brown, and thickly 

 mottled with yellowish-white. The normal, dentated, longi- 

 tudinal band is obsolete on the fore part, and on the hinder part 

 its margins are scarcely at all denticulated, while it narrows but 

 very little towards the 6pinners ; its colour is darker than the 

 rest, being in general indistinctly spotted with white, with 

 strong black margins, and a central, broken, black, longitudinal 

 lino ; the white spots outside this band are nearly confluent and 

 form in general a tolerably regular sub-marginal border to it. 

 The sides are like the upper side in colour, striped obliquely 

 with four, or five, parallel, black stripes. On the fore part of the 

 abdomen, in front of the central band, are a broken central 

 longitudinal line of two or three elongate black spots, and on 

 each side of the fore extremity is another of a curved form. 

 The under side is black, and has a longitudinal yellowish-white 

 marking on either side, followed by a row of similar spots 

 encirchng the 6pinners. 



The colours and markings of the male are similar to those of 

 the female. The palpi are short. The cubital joint has a single 

 long, strong, curved bristle in front. The radial joint is produced 

 rather behind on its outer side, and the digital joint is of toler- 

 able size, and has a small prominence at its base. The palpal 

 organs are large, prominent and rather complex, with a strong 

 curved process, indented or bifid at its extremity, directed out- 

 wards from their fore part. 



This very pretty and distinctly marked little JSpeira is abund- 

 ant among heather on Bloxworth Heath, where it spins a very 

 perfect snare. The snares are placed at all angles of inclination, 

 as well as horizontally and perpendicularly. It is adult in Juno 

 and July. 



A very distinct variety of the female was sent to me in the 

 summer of 1877 from Portland by Mr. C. W. Dale ; in this 

 specimen the longitudinal band on the hinder part of the 

 abdomen is entirely jet black, excepting four white spots, form- 

 ing a square near the middle ; and from the anterior end of the 

 band a continuous black bar runs to the fore margin of the 



