OCR Text |
Show 576 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. [June 19, Maxillee rather short, slightly divergent, and much the broadest at their extremities, which are rounded. Labium short, small, and of a somewhat curviangular form. Abdomen small, short, oval, and sloping from its most convex part, near the fore margin, to the spinners. ATHAMAS WHITMEEI, sp. n. (Plate LVI. fig. 11.) Adult male, length 1 \ line. The cephalothorax of this very pretty and distinct Spider is of a vellow-brown colour, with a large pale patch on each side of tbe hinder extremity, and the ocular area black, thinly clothed with short white hairs, and shining, in some lights, with a strong metallic dark violet hue ; a pale stripe densely clothed with bright white squamose hairs runs through the middle of the hinder half of the ocular area to the beginning of the posterior slope ; there is also a spot of similar hairs on each side towards the hinder part, and another on each side near the hinder part of the ocular area, just below the eyes of the third row ; the height of the clypeus is rather less than the diameter of one of the first row of eyes. The eyes may be described not only as in four transverse rows or four pairs, but as in two longitudinal, and nearly straight, parallel lines. The foremost pair are of enormous size, contiguous to each other, and placed on the vertical front of the caput; the two next to them are on the upper edge of the caput, and form a line but very slightly longer than the first pair ; they are also large, but not nearly so large as the former, and are separated by rather less than two diameters ; those of the next row are very minute and not easily distinguished, they form a line shorter than the last-mentioned eyes, but separated by a rather wider interval; these minute eyes are about halfway between those of the second and fourth rows. Those of the fourth row are considerably smaller than those of the second, and are divided by an interval of three diameters. The line, however, that they form is nearly of the same length. The legs are yellow, the femora and the two other basal joints of the first pair being much stronger than the rest, aud brownish black on each side. This, however, is apparently not a constant character ; or at any rate it does not always exist at the first coming of the Spider to maturity, but probably is acquired later ; for in one of the examples before me the first pair are of the same colour as the rest, and the femora of only ordinary comparative strength, and the legs themselves shorter and weaker. They are furnished sparingly with hairs and a few slender spines, except the first pair, in which there are five pairs of long strong spines beneath the tibiae, and three pairs (rather longer and stronger still) beneath the metatarsus, disposed in two longitudinal parallel rows ; these spines are much less strongly developed in the example before mentioned, whose fore legs are less strong than those of the other specimen. The palpi are pale yellow, short and slender; the radial joint is, if any thing, a little shorter than the cubital, and has a very small, slender, pointed apophysis at its fore extremity on the outer side |