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Show 542 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. [June 20, good health and a love of the subject would find ample reward for any real work among the Insects and Spiders of the Lower Nile basin. M y own work there during about eleven weeks, between the middle of January and the middle of April 1864, from Alexandria to Assouan, resulted in a collection of several hundred species of Insects of all orders, besides the 164 species of Spiders contained in the present list, as well as some few Acaridea and Scorpionidea. Rather more than one third of the Spiders belong to the two families Drassides and Salticides, these being also the two families even more numerously represented, absolutely as well as proportionally, in Syria and Palestine than in Egypt (see P. Z. S. 1872, p. 214). In those countries they comprise 11 7 species, or nearly one half of the Araneidea met with, while the numbers found in Egypt are 56. The dry and desert nature of both Palestine and Egypt are alike favourable to the development of the Drassides and Salticides; and many of the species are common to both countries. Suffering a good deal from climatic influences, I was unable to work very hard. Except for this and some other reasons, I feel no doubt but that the number of Spiders in m y collection would have been nearly, if not quite, doubled ; and if so, it is evident that there remains yet much to be done in order to exhaust the Egyptian species of this order. Of the total (164 species), 91 appeared to he new to science; 62 of these are now described for the first time, while the remainder (principally, as before mentioned, of the Drassides and Salticides) have been already described, P.Z.S. 1872 and 1874. One Spider alone in the collection appears to require the formation of a new genus for its reception, see p. 596. This Spider is of the family Lycosides, and is allied to the genus Dolomedes; it was found in a swamp near the canal about three miles from Alexandria. Comparing the numbers of genera and families with those found in Syria and Palestine, their very near similarity is remarkable. 19 families, comprising 59 genera, are the numbers in the latter district, while those of Egypt are respectively 17 and 60. In the present list, however, the Latreillian genus Satticus is divided into eight generic (or subgeneric) groups ; if this had been also done in the Palestine list, the number of genera would have been there 66 instead of 59 ; but even then the totals are remarkably near to each other. Comparing these results with those I have obtained in Great Britain (at present one of the best-, or perhaps the best-worked European district in respect to the Araneidea), we find here 7^ genera distributed among 14 families, 4 South-European families being unrepresented. This comparison might have been extended to the results obtained in Sweden by M. Westring and Dr. T. Thorell, as well as in Italy by Dr. P. Pavesi, and in Algeria by Mons. H. Lucas ; but it seems best at present to confine it to those • results obtained by, as nearly as possible, an identical system of generic and family limitation, since a difference of system would necessarily produce a different result in regard to the numbers of families and genera. I should have liked to have been able to make a more certain collation of the Egyptian Spiders with those of |