8586 



Arachnida. 



third pair slightly shortest. They are moderately long and 

 stout, and are furnished with rows of darkish hairs, and a few 

 fine short spines. 



Falces short, strong. The frontal margin projects rather over their 

 base. Colour murky yellow-brown. 



Maxillae large, stout, inclined towards the labium, much dilated at 

 their base, and obliquely truncated on their outer sides. Like 

 the falces in colour, but rather paler on the inner margins. 



Labium broad, short, squarish at the top. Colour yellow-brown, 

 mottled with sooty brown ; the top rather paler. 



Sternum rather convex, scalloped on the margins. Similar in 

 colour to the labium. Margins sooty brown. 



Palpi short, same colour as the legs. Radial joint longer and 

 stouter than the cubital. Digital joint hairy, large, long-oval 

 and pointed at the end, tumid and protuberant at the base, 

 like the undeveloped palpus of male spiders. The radial and 

 cubital joints have two or three black bristly hairs on their 

 upper sides. 



Abdomen large, long-oval, moderately convex above, slightly glossy 

 and of a sooty brown-black colour, thinly clothed with short 

 pale hairs. When in spirits of wine a tolerably well-defined 

 pattern may be traced, consisting of a longish, fusiform, longi- 

 tudinal band, formed by two pale lines ending in a point at 

 about half the length of the abdomen. From the sides of this 

 band several fine pale lines run at a sharp angle to the side 

 margins ; and following the band are several sharply-curved 

 lines, which span the hinder half of the abdomen towards the 

 spinners. Under side paler than the upper, and sometimes 

 with a strong yellowish tinge. It has an oblique pale line on 

 each side forwards, and two longitudinal ones meeting at the 

 spinners. All these lines are scarcely perceptible, except when 

 in spirits of wine. The sexual organs are very large and pro- 

 minent : at their extremity there is a reddish process, curving 

 inwards and over their orifice. 



Several specimens of this very remarkable spider were captured by 

 myself among heath at Bloxworth, in the spring of 1862. It may at 

 once be distinguished from every other known spider by its combining 

 the characters of both the male and female sex, having the large 

 tumid digital joint of the immature male palpus and the highly-deve- 

 loped female sexual organs at the base of the abdomen. 



