597 



milies and higher groups. If some spiders, f. inst. AntroUa montmvthia 

 Tkllk. and Thaumasia senilis Pekty, cannot possibly be with certainty 

 classified perhaps only because they have been so imperfectly de- 

 scribed or figured, there are others, which, although in almost every 

 important respect accurately known, leave ample room for conjecture 

 as regards their right systematical position, and which therefore for 

 the present can be only provisionally classified. I shall here allow 

 myself to make some remarks on the systematical place of certain 

 such genera, in connexion with a short account of the most impor- 

 tant points regarding the classification of spiders published during 

 the last few years. 



As the whole of this Order is still frequently termed Aranei- 

 des (-idea, -ixke, -ina) , I ought to mention the reasons that have 

 induced me to use in preference the denomination Aranw proposed 

 by Scndevall in his Conspectus Arachnidum, 1833. There is now 

 no longer any genus of spiders called Aranea, and there cannot 

 therefore be on that account any objection to calling the whole Order 

 Aranea?. Moreover Araneie surely signifies Spiders, just as Aves 

 signifies Birds, and Serpentes, Snakes, and this alone is a sufficient 

 reason for calling the Order of Spiders Aranece and nothing else. 

 That certain animals not belonging to that Order have in former 

 times been classed as "Aranese" or "Spiders", can give no more cause 

 or reason for calling this order Araneides (-idea etc.), than the fact 

 that Bats were once considered as birds, has given for calling the 

 Class of Birds Avides, or that Whales, Crabs and Oysters were for- 

 merly looked upon as fish, for calling the Class of Fishes Piscides. 

 Lastly the denominations Araneides, Araneina etc. are altogether illo- 

 gical, for the addition of the terminations -ides and -ina- etc., indi- 

 cates an enlargement of the conception that lies in the word, to 

 which such termination is appended: for instance, by Carabida; Ca- 

 rabides, Carabina, Carabicina we mean all Carabi, and besides a num- 

 ber of animals more or less closely allied to them, and Araneides 

 (-ina etc.) accordingly properly speaking signifies spiders and ani- 

 mals nearly related to them, that is to say, the same that is now 

 rightly expressed by the term Arachnoidea (Arachnida, -es). More- 

 over as regards the particular form Araneides (-ea, -m) , it is, as 

 being a compound of a Greek and a Latin word, liable to the ob- 

 jection, that it is a hybrid, and should already on that account be 

 rejected. 



