522 



and figured it in the l:st Volume of his Russian Travels" 1 )- Lepe- 

 chin's spicier here referred to, and to which Gmelin, loc. cit., gave the 

 name of Ar. argentea, is in fact nothing more than a variety of the 

 common A. sericea or lobata. 



Walckenaer thinks (vid. H. N. d. Ins. Apt., II, p. 117) curiously 

 enough, that the real "Ep. sericea" does not belong to the Fauna of 

 Europe; this is the more inexplicable, as Olivier, who first described 

 this spider under the trivial name sericea, expressly states that he 

 found it "frequemment en Provence". On the other hand Walcke- 

 naer takes up as a European species E. dentata (Rrsso), which only 

 differs from "E. sericea" by a somewhat different marking, and is 

 from Nice, i. e. almost the same locality (South of France) where 

 Olivier found his "Aranea sericea". Walckenaer appears to have 

 been as little acquainted with "E. dentata" (his description of this 

 form being merely an extract from Risso's) as with European spe- 

 cimens of "Jfi. sericea". — The specimens of the species in question, 

 which I have myself seen, and which I have partly collected in 

 Italy, in the neighbourhood of Naples (where also Costa 2 ) met with 

 "Epeira sericea"), partly received from Dr F. S. Soderlund, who had 

 captured them in the isle of Iviza, agree however perfectly with 

 not only Pallas' A. lobata, but also with the descriptions and figures 

 that Olivier, Latreille, Walckenaer and Savigny have given of -4. 

 (E.) sericea. They have not the marking which distinguishes E. 

 dentata , according to Risso's (and Walckenaer's) descriptions of that 

 form, which however is most assuredly but a variety of E. sericea or 

 lobata 3 ). To E. dentata Walckenaer rightly refers Lepechin's above- 

 mentioned Aranea.... abclomine lobato etc. (A. argentea Gmel.), 



which indeed is, as we have already seen, stated by Pallas himself 

 to be identical with his A. lobata; to the same species moreover be- 

 longs without doubt Argyopes prwlautus Koch from Turkey (neigh- 

 bourhood of Balkan), as also Walckenaer supposed. It seems to 

 me probable that even A. splendida Sav. et Aud. (from Syria) is only 

 a variety of A. lobata. 



1) Lepechin, Tagebuch d. Eeise etc., I, p. 316, Tab. 16, fig. 2: "Ara- 

 nea senoculata, thorace depresso, abdomine exovato globoso, lobato, punctis in- 

 dorso 4 nigris". 



2) 0. G. Costa, Cenni Zoologici, p. 16. 



3) One of the specimens from Iviza has two dark transverse bands across 

 the back of the abdomen. 



