290 
LINYPHIIDiE. 
thorax; it is sparingly clothed with hairs, glossy, and of a deep-black hue, that of the 
branchial opercula being pale-yellow. 
The sexes are similar in colour, but the male is smaller than the female, and the anterior 
prominence of its cephalo-thorax is much more elongated and slender, measuring about $ ~th 
of an inch in length ; it is elevated vertically, and dilated near the middle and at the apex, 
the latter dilatation being separated by a transverse groove into a superior and inferior 
segment, both of which are rough, with short, strong hairs ; on these enlargements the eyes 
are seated. The cubital joint of the palpi is clavate; the radial joint is short, and terminates 
in three apophyses ; one, situated on the inner side, which is longer than either the exterior 
or inferior one, and is curved outwards, has a process near its base, on the outer side ; the 
digital joint is somewhat oval, convex and hairy externally, concave within, comprising the 
palpal organs, which are highly developed, complicated in structure, with a strong spine on 
the outer side, curved in a circular form, and are of a blackish hue, tinged with red. 
Both sexes of this curiously constructed spider w r ere taken by Mr. Thomas Blackwall, 
in October, 1832, under stones and on rails in the township of Crumpsall. It has since been 
met with in Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, and Denbighshire, and in the spring of 1849 
specimens of the female were received from Mr. J. Hardy, who took them in Berwickshire. 
In autumn the female deposits between twenty and thirty spherical eggs, of a yellow 
colour, not agglutinated together, in a plano-convex cocoon, composed of fine, white silk, of 
a loosish texture, measuring ^ths of an inch in diameter; it is attached by the plane surface 
to the under sides of stones and fragments of rock, and its form is frequently modified by 
irregularities on the surface of the body to which it adheres. 
M. Walckenaer entertains the opinion that his Argus cornutus (‘ Hist, Nat. des Insect. 
Apt.,’ t. ii, p. 367) and the Theridion cornutum of M. Wider (‘ Museum Senckenbergianum,’ B. i, 
p. 235, taf. xvi, fig. 2) are the same as the Micryphantes camelinus of M. Koch, which is 
identical with Walkenaera acuminata; but they differ from it, apparently, both in structure 
and colour; and it has already been shown (page 226) that the Linyphia alticeps of Professor 
Sundevall, included by M. Walckenaer among the synonyma of this species, is perfectly 
distinct from it. 
Walckenaera cuspidata. PL XX, fig. 204. 
Walckenaera cuspidata, Elackw., Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., third series, vol. iii, 
p. 108. 
Blackw., Research, in Zook, p. 320, pi. 2, fig. 11. 
— — Blackw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. ix, 
p. 273. 
Length of the female, , ] 5 th of an inch; length of the cephalo-thorax, ^th, breadth, 4jth; 
breadth of the abdomen, ^nd; length of an anterior leg, fth; length of a leg of the third 
pair, |th. 
