OCR Text |
Show 1881.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. 767 The palpi of the male are rather long, and similar to the legs in colour ; the cubital joint is slightly curved, clavate, and a little longer than the radial joint, with a strongish, dark, curved, tapering bristle directed forwards from its anterior extremity, and a similar one at the extremity of the humeral joint. The digital joints are rather large, oval, with a strong cleft lobe on the inner side, and of a yellow-brown colour ; their convex sides are directed towards each other. The palpal organs are rather complex ; a black, filiform, closely adhering spine issues from the middle of their outer or (as they stand in the position in which the palpus is held) upper side, and passing backwards round their margin, terminates near their fore extremity on the inner, or lower, side. The falces, maxillae, labium, and sternum are similar in colour to the cephalothorax. The aBdomen looked at in profile is somewhat quadrate, one corner (the upper one) being considerably produced, or elevated ; in the male its height is distinctly less than the length of the Spider, but in the female it is nearly, and sometimes quite, equal to the length of the Spider. It is of a dull luteous yellowish colour (possibly brighter in the living Spider), its upper and lateral surface more or less thickly covered with scale-like plates of a brilliant silvery pearly nature and of an irregular form. In some examples these plates show very little space between them ; in others there is a considerable interval. The genital aperture of the female has a small but characteristic and prominent process connected with it. Of all the Spiders I am yet acquainted with this is perhaps the most delicately beautiful in the abdominal adornment, to which it would be impossible for any pencil to do adequate justice. Ei»ht females and one male were included in collections received several years ago from Ceylon, from Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites, to whom I have dedicated the new genus considered necessary for the reception of this pretty Spider. Gen. nov. ERIAUCHENUS. Caput elevated, with a long neck, carrying with it not only the eyes but the falces also, which are abnormally produced so as to meet the maxillae. Eyes unequal in size, in four pairs; two pairs on each side of the caput, near the insertion of the falces; those of the lower pair on each side represent the ordinary lateral pair, and are contiguous to each other, while those of the upper pair, on each side, represent the fore and hind central pairs, the eyes of each of the two latter pairs being abnormally separated. Legs long, slender, 1, 2, 4, 3 ; furnished with hairs only. Terminal tarsal claws three, articulated to a small supernumerary claw-mint. Maxilla: strong, slightly curved, and inclined towards the labium, which is large, somewhat pointed at its apex, where it is slightly notched, and broader across the middle than at the base or apex. |