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Show 1876.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 557 The falces are of the usual characteristic form, and similar in colour to the cephalothorax. The maxilla, labium, and sternum are rather paler in Colour than the cephalothorax, but present nothing at variance with the generic type; the sternum is finely clothed with coarse hoary hairs. The abdomen is oval and projects considerably over the base of the cephalothorax ; it is of a yellowish brown colour, clothed with hoary, yellowish, and blackish hairs intermixed; it has a narrow ill-defined dark brown longitudinal central bar on the fore half of the upperside, cruciform at its hinder part, and followed by a series of angular lines or chevrons to the spinners ; these lines terminate laterally in indistinct spots or blotches ; and outside the two or three hindermost blotches are some ill-defined spots or patches of hoary hairs, of which there are some more in two tufts just above the spinners; the underside is of a dull brownish yellow hue, clothed with greyish hairs and with pale lateral margins. An adult female, evidently of the same species, is considerably larger, and the abdomen covered with cretaceous white spots; the longitudinal central brown marking on the fore half of the upperside is broader, better-defined, and angular on its lateral margins, and the spots laterally terminating the succeeding angular bars are well defined, forming two longitudinal rows converging to the spinners: the underside has a broadish longitudinal brown band; and the spinners are surrounded by several short blackish radiating elongate spots or short bars. The usual supernumerary mamillary organ is present, together with calamistra on the metatarsi of the fourth pair of legs ; the latter, however, do not exist in the males. Two adult males and two females, one adult, the other immature, were beaten from the branches of the Sont Acacia in lo wer Egypt in February 1S64. Fam. AGELENIDES. Gen. TITANO3CA, Thor. TITANCECA DISTINCTA. Amaurobius distinctus, Cambr. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 263. Titanceca albomaculata, Sim. Arachn. de France, i. p. 218, pl. iii. fig. 7. Adults and immature examples of this Spider were found among the dead stems and debris of bushes and under stones near Alexandria in April 1864. In the same month of the year following I met with it more abundantly under stones and fragments of rock and among debris on the plains of the Jordan. The synonymic reference above to M . Eugene Simon's 'Arach-nides de France' is, I feel sure, correct; but there seems much reason to doubt the correctness of the reference quoted by that author from M. H. Lucas's ' Exploration en Algerie ;' the Epeira albomaculata, Luc, seems to m e by no means certainly of the same species, or even genus, as that described and figured /. c. by M . Simon. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1876, No. XXXVII. 37 |
