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Show 18/9.] SPIDERS FROM NEW ZEALAND. 697 A single example of this distinct species (which appears to be allied to Neriene rubripes, Bl.), was contained in the collection from New Zealand given to me by Mr. A. S. Atkinson. Genus MIMETUS, Hentz (Ctenophora, Bl.). M I M E T U S M E N D I C U S , sp. n. (Plate LIII. fig. 14.) Adult female, length rather more than 2 | lines. The cephalothorax of this Spider is small, of a rather elongate-oval form, and slightly constricted on the lateral margins at the caput ; the profile line forms a slight curve, sloping a little from the thoracic junction to the ocular area, which is broad, prominent on the middle and at the sides; the height of the clypeus is rather less than half that of the facial space. The eyes are of tolerable and nearly equal size, distributed in three well separated groups, and seated on tubercles ; the central group (consisting of the fore- and hind-central pairs) forms very nearly a square, and the fore-centrals are placed on a very strong projecting tubercular prominence ; those of each lateral pair are contiguous to each other, oblique, and placed on a strong tubercle quite on the side of the caput. The interval between those of the hind central pair is rather less than an eye's diameter, being no more than half that which separates each from the hind-lateral eye on its side. The colour of the cephalothorax is pale yellow, the caput, and some broken, oblique, converging lines on the thorax, being of a dark yellow-brown. The legs are long and slender, 1, 2, 4, 3, those of the first and second pairs greatly the longest; they are similar in colour to the cephalothorax, spotted with dull yellow-brown and with a few darker annuli. The spiny armature of the first and second pairs is like that of the typical species, consisting of a row of very long prominent, strongish, slightly curved spines along the inner sides of the metatarsi and tibiee, with three to five shorter and more curved ones between each two of them ; the first of these is very short, the rest increasing gradually in length and strength. The palpi are slender, moderately long, pale yellow, with a dark yellowish-brown annulus at the base of the digital joint. The falces are long, rather slender, vertical, divergent, the basal half of a pale yellow colour, the rest deep yellowish brown. The maxillee are rather long, not very strong, straight, parallel to each other, of a dark brownish hue, paler at the extremities. The labium is of a short oblong form, rounded at the apex, and similar in colour to the maxillae. The sternum is oval, truncated before, of a yellow colour, marked broadly round the margins with deep reddish yellow-brown oblique markings. The abdomen is large, very convex above, with a bluntish sub-conical eminence on each of the highest parts. It was in bad condition, but appeared to be of an almost uniform whitish hue, with a laree.'dark, somewhat cruciform pattern on the hinder slope. 6 * 45* |