350 
EPBIRIDtE. 
margins, and a band of the same hue extending along the middle, which increases in breadth 
as it approaches the eyes, where it becomes slightly bifid. The four intermediate eyes 
nearly form a square; the two anterior ones are seated on a slight prominence, and those of 
each lateral pair are placed obliquely on a tubercle and are almost in contact. The falces 
are powerful, conical, vertical, and armed with teeth on the inner surface; the maxillm are 
straight, robust, convex underneath, and enlarged at the extremity, which is rounded; and 
the lip is semicircular. These parts have a dark red-brown hue, the extremities of the 
maxillae and lip being much the palest. The sternum is heart-shaped, with prominences on 
the margins, opposite to the legs and lip, and has a brownish-black tint. The abdomen is 
oviform, glossy, convex above, and projects over the base of the cephalo-thorax; the upper 
part is of a yellowish or reddish-brown hue, with a large, oval, brownish-black spot in the 
anterior region, on each side of the medial line ; these spots are almost united in front by a 
narrow band of the same tint, which proceeds from each of them; between the oval spots and 
the spinners there is a series of curved, transverse, brownish-black bars, which diminish in 
length as they approach the anus ; the sides are of a brownish-black colour, freckled with 
dull-yellow, and have a slightly curved band of a yellowish hue extending from the anterior 
part to the spinners, on each side of which organs there are one or two yellow spots ; the 
under part is of a dark red-brown or brownish-black hue, bordered on each side by an ob¬ 
scure, yellowish band; and the colour of the branchial opercula is pale-yellow. 
The maie is smaller than the female, but it resembles her in the design formed by the 
distribution of its colours. The cubital and radial joints of its palpi are short ; the latter is 
rather the larger and projects a small, pointed apophysis from its extremity, in front; the 
digital joint is of an irregular, complex form, having a strong, prominent, corneous process in 
fiont, which has several minute protuberances on its under side, and a smaller, membrane¬ 
ous process on the outer side, whose extremity is enlarged, somewhat rounded, and supplied 
with long hairs ; the principal part of the joint is of a rhomboidal figure, gibbous at the base, 
convex, hairy, and provided with some erect spines externally, concave within, comprising 
the palpal organs, which are highly developed, complicated in structure, and have at their 
extremity a strong, corneous, pointed process, a long and nearly straight spine, and, exterior 
to both, a large, corneous process which terminates in a fine, transparent membrane; their 
colour is reddish-brown, the corneous parts being much the darkest. The convex sides of 
the digital joints are directed towards each other. 
The young, when they quit the cocoon, have a very dark hue, with the exception of the 
anterior and lateral regions of the upper part of the abdomen, which are marked with white, 
and two pale-yellow spots on its under part. 
Caves, cellars, overhanging banks and other obscure places constitute the principal 
haunts of Epeira fusca in North Wales. In autumn the female fabricates a large oviform 
cocoon of white silk of so delicate a texture that the eggs, connected together by silken lines 
in a globular mass a quarter of an inch in diameter, may be seen distinctly within it. Its 
transverse axis measures about eleven tenths, and its conjugate axis eight tenths of an inch, 
and it is attached by numerous lines, generally forming a short pedicle at one extremity, to 
the walls or roofs of the places it inhabits. The eggs, which are yellow and spherical, are 
between 400 and 500 in number. 
In transferring this species and Epeira antriada, included in the genus Meta Uebers. 
