mm 
188 THERIDIIDiE. 
their colour is brownish-yellow, mingled with red-brown. The convex sides of the digital 
joints are directed towards each other. On the under part of the abdomen there is a very 
dark-brown, prominent, transverse fold. 
In the summer of 1860 the Rev. O. P. Cambridge took adult and immature males and 
females of this species at Hursley, near Winchester, and at Bloxworth, in Dorsetshire. 
Theridion varians. PI. XIY, fig. 120. 
Theridion varians, Hahn, Die Arachn., Band i, p. 93, tab. 22, figs. 71, 72. 
— — Walck., Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt., tom. ii, p. 314. 
— — Blackw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. viii, 
p. 443. 
Theridium — Koch, Die Arachn., Band xii, p. 134, tab. 428, figs. 1056—1058. 
Length of the female, jth of an inch; length of the cephalo-thorax, ^th, breadth, 5 ',-th; 
breadth of the abdomen, ^th; length of an anterior leg, ith; length of a leg of the third 
pair, 5 th. 
The cephalo-thorax is short, oval, convex, glossy, and has a large indentation in the 
medial line; it is of a yellowish-white colour, with a broad, black band extending along the 
middle, fine, black, lateral margins, and a spot of the same hue on the frontal margin. The 
falces, which are conical and vertical, have a yellowish tint, with a black spot at the base, in 
front. The maxillae are convex at the base, and inclined towards the lip, which is somewhat 
triangular. The colour of these parts is yellowish, each having a black spot at the base. 
The sternum is heart-shaped, of a pale-yellow hue, and is broadly bordered with black, except 
at the anterior part. The legs are long, slender, and diaphanous, with black annuli; 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, which are short, 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 seated on a protuberance, being the darkest and 
rather the largest of the eight; those constituting each lateral pair are contiguous, and are 
placed on a small tubercle. The abdomen is subglobose, glossy, thinly clothed with hairs, 
and projects over the base of the cephalo-thorax; it is of a dark-brown colour on the upper 
part, a broad, strongly dentated band, which tapers to the spinners, extending along the 
middle; this band has a reddish-brown tint, except at the extremities and margins, which are 
yellowish, and it comprises some irregular black lines; at the anterior extremity there is a 
transverse, curved, black line, whose convexity is directed upwards; the sides and under 
part are of a dull, yellowish-brown colour, mottled with numerous minute, irregular, yellowish 
spots, the superior margin of the former being strongly dentated ; a brownish-black, oval spot 
occurs on each side of the upper part of the sexual organs, and a larger one of the same hue 
is situated between those organs and the spinners; the sexual organs have a longitudinal, 
