--.:_ 
186 THERIDIIDvE. 
breadth of the abdomen, T ’ 3 th; length of an anterior leg, # ? ths; length of a leg of the third 
pair, jth. 
The cephalo-thorax is short, oval, convex, glossy, with slight furrows on the sides con¬ 
verging towards an indentation in the medial line ; the falces are conical and vertical; the 
maxillae are greatly inclined towards the lip, which is triangular; and the sternum is heart- 
shaped. These parts are of a dark-brown colour; the falces and the inner surface of the 
maxillae are the palest, and the former have an obscure, dark, longitudinal streak in front, 
and another on the outer side, near the base. The legs are moderately long and slender, 
provided with hairs and erect spines, and of a pale, yellowish-brown colour, with dark-brown 
annuli; the first pair is much the longest, the fourth pair is rather longer than the second, 
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 
resemble the legs in colour, and have a curved, pectinated claw at their extremity. The 
four intermediate eyes form a square, the two anterior ones, which are the darkest and rather 
the largest of the eight, being seated on a protuberance; those constituting each lateral pair 
are placed obliquely on a small tubercle and are contiguous. The abdomen is subglobose, 
thinly covered with hairs, and projects over the base of the cephalo-thorax; the upper part 
is of a dull-brown colour, with a strongly dentated band of a yellowish-white hue, sometimes 
intermixed with reddish-brown, extending along the middle; this band has a narrow border, 
of a brownish-black tint, from which rows of spots of the same hue pass obliquely on the 
sides, which are of a pale-brown colour, thickly spotted with yellowish-white ; the under part 
has a brownish-black tint, a spot near the spinners and a smaller one on the outer side of 
each branchial operculum being yellowish; the spinners have a pale-brown hue, and the 
colour of the branchial opercula is dull, yellowish-brown. Lighter and darker coloured 
varieties of this species are not uncommon. 
The male is smaller than the female, and its abdomen, which is darker coloured, has a 
prominent, transverse fold near the middle of the under part. The colour of its palpi is 
yellowish -brown, with the exception of the digital joint, which has a dark-biown tint, the 
cubital and radial joints are short, the latter being produced at the extremity, on the outer 
side; the digital joint is oval, convex and hairy externally, concave within, comprising the 
palpal organs, which are moderately developed, not very complex in structure, and of a 
reddish-brown colour. The convex sides of the digital joints are directed towards each other. 
Branches of trees and shrubs trained against buildings, and crevices in rocks and walls, 
are the situations usually occupied by this species. The female, in the month of June or July, 
attaches to objects near her retreat a globular cocoon of greenish-brown silk, of a very loose 
texture, measuring one ninth of an inch in diameter, in which she deposits from thirty to sixty 
spherical eggs, of a brown colour, not agglutinated together. 
