EPEIRA. 
355 
broadest, comprises two large, yellowish-white marks ; the form of the anterior one is 
irregular, that of the posterior one triangular, and both are bisected by a fine, ramified, brown 
line; between the base of the triangular mark and the spinners there are transverse black, 
brown, and yellowish-white bars, and on each side of the leaf-shaped mark there is a broad, 
dentated band of a yellowish-white or red-brown colour; the sides have a brownish-black hue 
mottled with yellow, and the under part, which is of a yellowish colour reticulated with 
brown, has a broad, brownish-black band, bounded on each side by a yellow line, extending 
along the middle; two yellow spots occur on each side of the spinners, and the branchial 
opercula have a yellowish-brown tint, their inner margin being somewhat paler. This 
species varies greatly in colour, some individuals being much darker than others. 
The male is smaller and darker coloured than the female, and its legs, which are without 
annuli, have a red-brown tint. The cubital and radial joints of its palpi are short, the latter, 
which is the stronger, having a minute apophysis at its extremity, in front; the digital joint 
consists of three parts; one, which is straight and glossy, projects in front; another, united 
to the base of the former on the outer side, is slender and hairy; and the third, which is 
much the largest, is somewhat oval, greatly contracted at its base, convex and hairy 
externally, and concave within ; all are connected with the palpal organs, which are 
moderately developed, not very complicated in structure, and of a red-brown colour. The 
convex sides of the oval parts of the digital joints are directed towards each other. 
Epiiira inclinata abounds in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland, but seems to 
prefer districts which are well wooded. It spins in the intervals between the branches of 
trees and shrubs a net similar in design to that constructed by Epeira antriada, and, like that 
species, drops quickly, on being disturbed, from its station in the circular aperture at the 
centre of its snare, drawing from the spinners in its descent a line which enables it speedily 
to regain its former position. 
In autumn the female attaches to the under side of stones, fragments of rock, and lichens 
growing on old trees, several globular cocoons of whitish silk of a loose texture, measuring, 
on an average, three eighths of an inch in diameter ; each contains from 80 to 140 spherical 
eggs of a pale-yellow colour, cemented together in a globular mass. 
An adult female of this species, captured in August, 1842, was entirely destitute of the 
left intermediate eye of the posterior row, and the right intermediate eye of the same row had 
not half of the usual size; and in another adult female, received from the Rev. Hamlet 
Clark, in the autumn of the same year, the right intermediate eye of the posterior row had 
not one eighth of the natural size, being merely rudimentary. 
Epeira albimacula. PI. XXVI, fig. 256. 
Epeira albimacula, Blackw., Annals and Hag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. xiv, 
p. 33. 
Zilla — Koch, Uebers. des Arachn. Syst., erstes Heft, p. 5. 
— -— Koch, Die Arachn., Band vi, p. 144, tab. 215, figs. 534, 535. 
