272 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 



was entirely fulfilled the expectation with which I entered ni)on ilio \nv\)- 

 aration of tliese comparative tables.' 



It may not be without interest, and may, perhaps, have some bearing 

 upon the above tlieory of distribution, to remark that the "cnus (or a 

 closely allied genus) to which Ileterapoda venatoria belongs is probably 

 one of the oldest known forms of the spider fauna. Thorell ^ places the 

 now existing genus Heterapoda (Ocypete, Koch ; Oxypete, Mengc) among 

 those which are represented in the amber spiders. Amber probably be- 

 longs to the tertiary (oligocene) period, and in it numerous spiders are 

 found, generally well preserved. How far any supposed contiguity or 

 closer approach of continents now separated might have facilitated or oc- 

 casioned the world round distribution of our Huntsman spider, is a point 

 upon which geologists may more properly express an opinion. 



The question, what variation of species, if any, occurs in the course 

 of this distribution, is of great interest. The specimens examined by me 

 show no variations which may not come within the range of 

 Variation those natural differences which obtain in many species. Most of 

 o pecies^j^^ specimens had been so long in alcohol as to obliterate any 

 bution. differences in color and markings which might have existed. 

 The normal color is a uniform tawny yellow, varied upon the 

 cephalothorax by a circular patch of blackish or blackish brown color 

 covering nearly two-thirds of the space ; and, further, by a white or whit- 

 ish marginal band quite or nearly girdling the same. In some of the 

 specimens this circular patch seems to have been more or less of a brown- 

 ish color. Gerstaecker ^ speaks of this species as distributed over a large 

 part of Africa, Asia, and South America. Specimens were examined by 

 him from Dafeta, Mombas, and Zanzibar. In these there was some varia- 

 tion in the coloration of the maxillary palpi : on the one hand, from a 

 light rust color to brownish red and pitch brown ; on the other hand, to 

 a more or less sharp division or limitation of the light yellow color of 

 the anterior and posterior borders of the cephalothorax. There was also 

 a browning of the region about the eyes. But the araneologist will not 

 regard such differences as having any special value as specific characters. 



' When these studies were originally announced in the Philadelphia Academy, I had 

 no specimens from the South Pacific Islands within the same general belt ; nor from the 

 chain of small islands between the Sandwich Islands and Asia, viz., Philadelphia, Drake, and 

 Massachusetts Islands, Anson and Magellan Archipelagoes ; nor the Cape Verde and St. 

 Helena Islands, off the west coast of Africa. Nevertheless, I expressed the belief that these 

 liad all been stations in the line of migration, the latter across the Atlantic Ocean as the 

 Antilles have been ; the former across the Pacific, as the Sandwich Islands, Loo-Choo Island, 

 and .lapan have been, and as Mauritius and Madagascar Islands have been across the In- 

 dian Ocean. Moreover, I ventured the prediction that a more diligent sear(;h would prove that 

 this cosmopolitan species exists, and probably had already been collected at some of the 

 above points. 



^ European Spiders, page 231, Nov. Acta. Reg. Soc. Sci., Upeal., 1870. 



■■' Von der Uecken's Travels in I'^ast Africa, III., ii., page 482. ^ 



