438 



The female resembles the male in form and colours. The 

 genital aperture is small, and has only a slightly prominent, and 

 inconspicuous process connected with it. 



Adults of both sexes were found in tolerable abundance 

 among moss in a fir plantation near Bloxworth in October, 1879. 

 This is its first record as a British spider. In 1875 I received it 

 from France (where it appears to bo not uncommon) from 

 Monsieur Eugene Simon. I have placed it here in the Genus 

 Neriene, though it is one of those generically obscure spiders 

 which on a thorough revision of Linyphia and Neriene, must bo 

 placed (with some others) in a separate genus. 



NERIENE DEMISSA, Sp. n. 



Length of the adult female scarcely, if at all, over Jrds of 

 a line, or l-18th of an inch. 



The whole of the fore part of this minute spider is yellow ; 

 the legs strongly tinged with brownish red ; the colour of the 

 abdomen being olive brown, closely freckled with yellowish 

 points ; these (together with some other pale lines and markings 

 on the upper side) are probably only (or chiefly) visible when in 

 spirits of wine. The cophalo-thorax is distinctly margined with a 

 black line ; and the sides are marked with a dusky, sub-marginal, 

 indistinct, suffused line, besides some dusky, converging bars. 

 The lateral, marginal constrictions at the caput are slight ; and, 

 when looked at in the profile, the nearly level line from the caput 

 to the thoracic indentation is broken by a slight notch, or dip, 

 close behind the eyes, and another just behind the occiput; the 

 point whero the posterior slopo begins being somewhat prominent. 

 The eyes are small, and closely grouped together; those of the 

 two lateral pairs and the fore-central pair form a curved line of 

 six contiguous eyes. The interval botweon those of the hind- 

 central pair is equal to a diameter, and that between each and 

 the hind-lateral • eye on its side is scarcely more than half a 

 diameter. The ocular aroa is strongly suffused with black ; and 

 immediately behind the interval between each of the hind- 



