282 



like a toad in miniature, as it sits with its legs all drawn up close 

 to the body, and the flattened abdomen hunched up over the 

 cephalo-thorax. I have frequently met with this spidor (which 

 is adult in May and June) in Dorsetshire, and it is found pretty 

 generally throughout Great Britain. With its nocturnal habits 

 the food of this spider is, in all probability, chiefly small moths. 



EPEIRA SOLLERS. 



Epeira soleks, Walck., Blackw., Spid. Great Brit, and Irel., p. 

 336, pi. xxiv., fig. 243. 



The length of the male is nearly l-4th of an inch, and that of 

 the femalo about l-3rd. 



The cephalo-thorax is of ordinary form ; its colour is dark- 

 brown, the caput being much paler, and the whole pretty densely 

 clothed with long, fine, yellowish-grey hairs. The legs are 

 moderately strong, but (in the females) rather short ; their colour 

 is yellow-brown with dark reddish-brown blotches and annuli. 

 The spines are not conspicuous ; those, however, on the tibia? of 

 the first and second pairs of the male are longer and stronger than 

 the rest. 



The palpi (of the male) are short. The radial joint has a 

 slightly curved, dark red-brown apophysis at its fore extremity, 

 rather towards the outer side. The digital joint is tolorably largo, 

 and the palpal organs are prominent and complex. 



The abdomen is of a very short, broad-oval form, projects 

 well over the base of tho cephalo-thorax, and is pretty thickly 

 covered with hairs, which somewhat obscures the pattern. The 

 usual dentated longitudinal band occupies the upper side, and is 

 of a dark brown colour ; its margins are not very distinctly 

 defined, and scarcely at all, or at least very bluntly, denticulated ; 

 the prominent portions of tho denticulations are black, and 

 the whole has a broken, yellowish, marginal line. A- 

 large cruciform marking may be generally, more or less 

 distinctly traced by the darker hue, and yellowish mar- 

 gins of the shaft, a single transverse line forming the 



