60 



gradually and with the same inclination , as in Blackwall's figure and 

 iu L. affinis, but it rises more abruptly, forming an angle with the 

 thorax. This has seemed to me to indicate that Blackwall's L. luteola 

 or alticeps is identical with L. affinis, an opinion which derives support 

 from the circumstance that Cambridge has sent me specimens of L. affinis 

 under the name of L. alticeps Blackw. ; and he has just lately written 

 to inform me that the spider described by Westring under the name of 

 L. alticeps has never yet been met with in England. — That Sunde- 

 vall confounded L. affinis, or L. luteola Blackw., with the true L. alti- 

 ceps , is probable from his having considered "L. luteola" to be a sy- 

 nonym of his L. alticeps ')• Even by Westring the former was long 

 considered as a mere variety of the latter, and it was only in the 

 "Addenda" to his Aran. Suec, that he first classed it as an independent 

 species. — As the specific name luteola is far older than affinis (vid. p. 

 63) , it is clear that this latter name must give place to the former. 



Even Bolyphantes alpestris C. Koch (Die Arachn., VIII, p. 69, 

 fig. 642) seems to me to belong to L. luteola or affinis, not to L. 

 alticeps Sund. In the first place it is said to be far less than L. 

 bucculenta (Bol. trilineatus C. Koch), which may possibly be said 

 of L. luteola, but not of L. alticeps, which is but little less than 

 L. bucculenta. Moreover it is not mentioned that the head is pro- 

 minent before, a circumstance, which could hardly have escaped Koch's 

 notice, had he had L. alticeps before him, but may more easily be 

 overlooked in L. luteola. Lastly it is stated of the bristle on the 

 patellar joint of the palpus, that it is "abgestutzt," i. e. truncated, 

 and according to "Westring' s own words this bristle is "in L. affini 

 apice truncata 2 ), in L. alticipite acuta." To these reasons, derived 

 from the description, may be added another, drawn from statements 

 relative to the haunts of B. alpestris: it appears, according to Koch, 

 who met with it in the Nassfelder-Alps in Southern Germany, to belong 

 in those parts exclusively to the Alpine regions (I.e., p. 70). At S:t Mo- 

 ritz in Ober-Engadin in Switzerland I took several specimens, all fema- 

 les, which exactly correspond to female specimens of L. luteola from 

 Sweden, Finnland and Germany, and which are easily distinguished 

 from L. alticeps by the palpal claw having, in general, only three or 



1) See Blackwall, A Catal. of Brit. Spid. etc., in Ann. and Mag. of Nat. 

 Hist., 2 Ser., IX, p. 17. 



2) Seen through the microscope , the blunt and at the extremity somewhat 

 dilated bristle exhibits a few small spines or teeth at the apex, generally one in 

 the middle and a pair of still less teeth on each side of it. 



