OCR Text |
Show 1876.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 581 pale dusky whitish yellow colour, the legs and palpi being still paler, and the abdomen creamy white. The general form is rather less robust than that of D. diana, and the legs proportionally rather longer and more slender. The eyes of the foremost row are very nearly equidistant from each other; while those of the hind central pair are perceptibly nearer to each other than each is to the hind lateral on its side; the interval between those of each lateral pair is greater than that between the fore and hind central pairs, owing to the rather greater length and stronger curve of the hinder row ; the fore lateral eyes are largest of the eight; the height of the clypeus is less than half of that of the facial space. The legs are furnished sparingly with hairs and spines-their relative length being 2, 1, 4, 3, the difference between 2 and 1 and 4 and 3 respectively being very slight. The palpi are similar in colour to the legs and rather short; the radial joint is shorter than the cubital, and has its outer extremity very slightly produced and terminating with a very small, blunt, curved, brown, claw-like process ; the digital joint is narrow, and about equal in length to the radial and cubital joints together ; the palpal organs are not highly developed nor complex, but apparently consist of a single flattish oval pale yellowish lobe, upon the hinder part of which there rests a strongish, pale, curved spine springing from the outer side of the base of the lobe, and tapering to a sharp point on the inner side. The abdomen is of a regular oval form, and projects pretty well over the base of the cephalothorax; its upper surface is flattish, of a nearly white cretaceous appearance, marked longitudinally from near the fore extremity by a narrow central bar, defined merely by a dull marginal line, and, tapering at each end, fining off to a single line a little way from the spinners ; the five normal impressed spots are visible on the upperside, one at the fore extremity of the central bar, and four forming nearly a square figure behind it, the anterior side of the figure being rather shorter than the rest; the underside of the abdomen is unicolorous. An adult female differed only in the legs of the first and second pairs being shorter than those of the male. The above examples were found on low plants near Alexandria. Gen. XYSTICUS, C. Koch. X Y S T I C U S H I R T U S. Thomisus hirtus, Sav. et Aud. Egypte, p. 164, pl. vi. fig. 11. An adult female of this Spider was found near Cairo. XYSTICUS PROMISCUUS, sp. n. Adult male, length If line. This small Xysticus is nearly allied to X. audax, Koch ; its general form, however, is shorter and broader, the cephalothorax being nearly circular save for the usual broad truncate form of the fore extremity |