THERIDION. 
179 
locked up in a book-case, continued to exist without receiving any nutriment whatever from 
the 15th of October, 1829, to the 30th of April, 1831, when it died. That so voracious an 
animal should be capable of enduring abstinence from food for so long a period is certainly 
an extraordinary fact. 
Theridion Sisyphum. PI. XIII, fig. 113. 
Theridion Sisyphum, Walck., Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt., tom. ii, p. 298. 
— — Latr., Gen. Crust, et Insect., tom. i, p. 97. 
— — Hahn, Die Arachn., Band ii, p. 47, tab. 58, fig. 132. 
— — Blackw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. viii, 
p. 338. 
— lunatum, Sund., Yet. Acad. Handl., 1831, p. 111. 
Theridium — Koch, Uebers. des Arachn. Syst., erstes Heft, p. 8. 
— — Koch, Die Arachn., Band viii, p. 74, tab. 273, fig. 645. 
— — Koch, Die Arachn., Band xii, p. 137, tab. 429, figs. 1060, 1061. 
Steatoda lunata, Sund., Consp. Arachn., pp. 16, 17. 
Titulus 14, Lister, Hist. Animal. Angl. De Aran., p. 53, tab. 1, fig. 14. 
Length of the female, jth of an inch; length of the cephalo-thorax, T ' ? tb, breadth, ^th; 
breadth of the abdomen, T ’ 5 th; length of an anterior leg, jrd; length of a leg of the third 
pair, Ijths. 
The four intermediate eyes form a square, the two anterior oii.es, which are the largest 
and darkest of the eight, being seated on a protuberance ; those of each lateral pair are placed 
obliquely on a small tubercle and are nearly contiguous. The cephalo-thorax is convex, 
glossy, slightly compressed before, rounded on the sides, and has a large indentation in the 
medial line; the falces are small, conical and vertical; the maxillae are inclined towards the 
lip, which is semicircular; and the sternum is heart-shaped, with small eminences on the 
sides, opposite to the legs. These parts are of a red-brown colour, the sternum being the 
palest and the lip the darkest. The legs are moderately long, provided with hairs, and of a 
pale, reddish-brown hue, with obscure annuli of a deeper shade at the joints; the first pair is 
the longest, then the fourth, and the third pair is the shortest; each tarsus is terminated by 
three claws; the two superior ones are curved and pectinated, and the inferior one is inflected 
near its base. The palpi are short, and resemble the legs in colour; the digital joint, which 
is the darkest, having a curved, pectinated claw at its extremity. The abdomen is sparingly 
clothed with hairs, pointed at the spinners, very convex above, and projects over the base of 
the cephalo-thorax; on the upper part various shades of ferruginous, black, and yellowish- 
wdiite colours are distributed in lines, streaks, and spots; near the summit of the convexity 
two long, curved, yellowish-white lines meet in an angle whose vertex is directed forwards; 
before the angular point two streaks of the same hue extend towards the cephalo-thorax, 
comprising between them a black space mottled with ferruginous; and within the angle there 
