DRASSUS. 
107 
and radial joints of the palpi are short; the latter is the stronger, and projects a large, black, 
pointed apophysis from its extremity, on the outer side; the digital joint is oval, convex and 
hairy externally, concave within, comprising the palpal organs, which are highly developed, 
not very complicated in structure, with a small, pointed, corneous process near their extremity, 
on the outer side, and are of a dark, reddish-brown colour. 
In the mountainous parts of Denbighshire and Caernarvonshire this species is of frequent 
occurrence under detached pieces of rock. When adult, the terminal joint of each inter¬ 
mediate spinner is directed downwards at right angles to its base, and the full complement of 
papillae or spinning-tubes connected with the short terminal joint of each inferior spinner is 
eight. Six of these papillae, which are of large dimensions, are probably used by Drassus ater 
in constructing its cocoon, the remarkably compact texture of which is best explained on the 
supposition that a copious supply of viscous matter, in a state of fluidity, is employed in 
its fabrication; and the other two, situated on the inferior surface of the spinner, at a greater 
distance from its extremity than the rest, are minute and almost contiguous. The large 
papillae vary in number with the age of the animal; and it is a fact deserving of notice, that 
they are not always developed simultaneously on both spinners—four, five, or six being 
sometimes observed on one, when three, four, or five only are to be seen on the other; 
but the two minute ones are present invariably. 
In May the female deposits forty or fifty white, spherical eggs, not agglutinated together, 
in a cocoon of a plano-convex figure, attached to the under side of stones by its plane 
surface; it is of a fine but very compact texture, and measures fths of an inch in diameter. 
When newly constructed it is white, but becomes of a reddish hue before it is abandoned by 
the young, which, at that early period of their existence, have each inferior spinner provided 
with two large and two small papillae. The female usually remains upon or near the cocoon, 
to which she is strongly attached. 
Mr. J. Hardy has captured this species in Berwickshire. 
Drassus pusillus. PI. VI, fig. 64. 
Melanophora pusilla, Koch, Uebers. des Araclin. Syst., erstes Heft, p. 17. 
— — Koch, Die Arachn., Band vi, p, 90, tab. 202, fig. 496. 
Length of the female, 3 th of an inch; length of the cephalo-thorax, ^th, breadth, ^th . 
breadth of the abdomen, Ath; length of a posterior leg, jth; length of a leg of the third 
pair, gth. 
The eyes are disposed on the anterior part of the cephalo-thorax in two transverse, 
nearly straight rows; and the intermediate ones of the anterior row, which is situated 
immediately above the frontal margin, are seated on a minute tubercle, and are the smallest 
and darkest of the eight. The cephalo-thorax is oval, pointed before, sparingly clothed with 
hairs, convex, glossy, somewhat depressed on the sides, which are marked with slight furrows 
