60 
Psyche 
[June-Sept. 
NOTES ON EPEIRA PENTAGON A HENTZ. 
By Elizabeth B. Bryant and Allan F. Archer. 
Among the spiders described by Hentz from 1842 to 1850 
are several that have never been recognized by later col- 
lectors. One of these is Epeira ? pentagona. This species, 
which the junior author has found rather common in the 
last summer in Alabama, proves to be identical with Cyrto- 
phora tuberculata Keyserling 1 (1893) from Florida. The 
latter was wrongly placed generically and now becomes a 
synonym of pentagona. Related species recorded from the 
West Indies, Venezuela and Central America by Simon 
and 0. P. Cambridge have been referred with tuberculata 
to the genus Dolichognatha Cambridge, the genotype of 
which is from Ceylon. According to Simon 2 , this latter 
species spins a web in the form of a horizontal sheet, under 
which the spider stands in a manner similar to that of 
Linyphia. Since pentagona differs from the Ceylonese geno- 
type in the form of web, as well as in several important 
structural characters, the following genus is erected for it 
here. 
Nicliolasia Gen. nov. 
Cephalothorax short, cephalic portion very high; eyes, 
anterior row weakly recurved, eyes equidistant, a.m.e. 
largest of the eight, posterior row straight, p.m.e. smallest 
of the eight, touching and widely separated from p.l.e., 
lateral eyes on separate tubercles separated by a diameter 
of p.l.e. ; mandibles two-thirds as long as cephalothorax in 
both sexes, no boss, narrow, slightly excavate on inner 
margin and the tips slightly widened, inferior margin of 
the fang groove with two teeth; labium much wider than 
long with tip truncate; abdomen short, very high at base, 
1 Die Spinnen Amerikas, 4, Epeiridae, p. 265, pi. 14, fig. 197. 
2 Histoire Naturelle des Araignees, 1894, 1, p. 743. 
