Petrunkevitch, Dr. Alexander 
Dr . Waldo L . Schmitt 
Head Curator 
Department of Zoology 
TJ. S . National Mu s eum 
Washington, 25, D. C . 
YALE UNIVERSITY 
O S B ORN 7,QOT O OT CAL LABORATORY 
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 
Dear Dr. Schmitt : 
The spider, a photograph of 'which you sent 
me with a request for its identification, probably belongs to the 
uenus Scodra of which there are about 12 species in French Congo and 
Liberia, the most common species being S.calcarata. All Scodras have 
hairy feet, live in forests and mostly on trees. However, as you know, 
the identification of tarantulae Is more difficult even than the Identi- 
fication of arachnomorph spiders, and that applies to specimens in the 
hand, '..hen it comes to photographs, no natter how excellent, identification, 
to say the least, is only tentative, based on nothing but the ’'looks* 1 
of the creature. 
T 
am not going to Atlanta, but will be most probably in Washington 
in April at the meetings of the National Academy. If you will he in 
Washington at that time I shall make a special effort to see you and 
to have the pleasure of a nice chat with you as of old days. By then 
I shali Kef- in my 81st year, but I work daily in the lab until 6 
and have just finished a study of amber spiders and begin putting the 
manuscript in shape for publication. It is a fairly large paper as it 
covers two large and five small European collections. On completion 
of this work I shall study the Cretaceous arachnids and then v/rite a 
book on Evolution of Spiders :an analysis, in which I propose to assemble 
all available data with many figures and an outline of the relative value 
of available facts for *the construction of a natural classification. 
