| OCR Text |
Show 1876.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 549 below by a narrow reddish yellow-brown semicircular band of a similar nature to the scutum with which the abdomen is covered. W h e n the edges of the upper and lower scutum are brought together, they enclose and conceal the spinners. The spiracular openings are four in number, the two extra ones being smaller than the others and situated one close behind each of the two ordinary openings; M . Simon, I. c. pp. 41, 42, says that he has been unable to discover these extra openings in any species of Oonops that has come before him ; they are, however, plainly visible in the two examples of O. loricatus which I received from him, though less plainly in O. punctatus Cambr. In the type of the genus, 0. pulcher, Tempi., owing to the minuteness of the Spider, and (after it has been some time in spirit of wine) pale colour of the abdomen, the hinder spiracular openings are very difficult to be seen; indeed in some examples I a m quite unable to detect them ; in one or two, however, I can discern them sufficiently to be quite convinced that the species possesses them ; only, being the merest possible slits, they cannot in general be seen with an ordinary lens. It would be strange indeed if they were really wanting in O. pulcher, while so unmistakably present iu O. scutatus, and O. loricatus, as well as in the species next described (O. pauper), which last is very nearly allied to O. pulcher, and in another undescribed species allied to O. scutatus, received from Ceylon; all these Spiders are, as it appears to me, generically quite identical. Three examples of O. scutatus (one male and two females) were found by myself under stones near Alexandria in April 1864. OONOPS PAUPER, n. sp. Adult female, length 1^ line. The cephalothorax, falces, maxillse, labium, and sternum of this Spider are of a dull orange-yellow colour, the legs and palpi being pale straw-yellow, and the abdomen dull whity brown. The cephalothorax is short, broad behind, and strongly constricted laterally at the caput; the normal indentations are tolerably strongly marked ; and the height of the clypeus is equal to half that of the facial space; the highest point (looked at sideways) is at the thoracic junction, whence it runs by an evenly curved slope to the clypeus, the hinder slope not being very abrupt; the clypeus is furnished with some minute tubercles, each of which was probably furnished with a bristly hair ; but if so, these had been rubbed off before this description was made. The eyes are large, seated on black tubercular spots, and occupy the whole width of the fore part of the caput; their position is the same as that of those of 0. pulcher (Tempi.), but they are far more circular in shape; the hind lateral and central eyes form a slightly curved row, whose convexity is directed forwards ; those of the central pair are as nearly as possible contiguous to each other; and each is separated by rather less than its diameter's distance from the hind lateral nearest to it; the hind laterals have a strong sideway and backward direction, and each is very near, but not quite con- |
