OCR Text |
Show 1876.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 615 but densely and uniformly clothed with whitish and sandy grey pubescence, liable to be rubbed off in capturing and securing. The female is considerably larger than the male, but resembles it in general characters and appearance; the colour of the abdomen in this sex, however, is more commonly of a more sandy hue than that of the male. Adults of both sexes were found on the bare desert in several places from Alexandria to Assouan, and, except when in motion, are exceedingly difficult to perceive. The males are very active. ATTUS MENDAX, sp. n. Adult male, length 3 lines. The cephalothorax of this Spider is massive, but of ordinary form, and thickly pubescent, with a good many prominent bristly hairs scattered over its upper surface, but most thickly on the fore part of the ocular area. It is of a deep black-brown hue, and has two parallel longitudinal stripes clothed with white hairs; these stripes run to the eyes of the hinder row, and melt away insensibly into the somewhat greyish rusty-yellow colour of the ocular area ; the black-brown band between them is rather more than double their width, but narrows a little at its hinder extremity : the margins of the cephalothorax are black ; but there is a bordering of white hairs both above and below them. The eyes are in the ordinary position ; the ocular area is broader than long, and the length of the hinder row is less than that of the anterior one; the eyes of the intermediate row equally separate the posterior and anterior ones, and each is placed a little within the straight line formed by the laterals of these two rows on its side. The height of the clypeus equals the diameter of one of the fore central eyes ; these are very near to each other, but not quite contiguous, and each is separated from the lateral eye of the same row on its side by no more than one third the diameter of the latter. The leys are strong, but not very long, nor greatly different in length; relatively to each other they are 4, 3, 1, 2 ; their colour is a dull yellow, faintly marked with a dusky hue, but scarcely annulated ; they are clothed with a little greyish pubescence, and furnished with spines, hairs, and bristles; each tarsus terminates with two rather long claws, pectinated, and with a strong and compact scopula beneath them. The palpi are short and strong; they are of a pale yellowish colour, the digital joints being slightly brownish yellow ; the cubital joints are thickly fringed and clothed above with strong white hairs, among which, on the fore margin of the upperside of the joint, is a strong, prominent, black, tapering bristle ; the radial joint is shorter than the cubital, and has a small, dark-coloured, slightly curved, and (apparently) blunt-pointed apophysis at its extremity on the outer side, just, or nearly, behind which is a rather compact tuft of straight black bristles ; there are also some other bristles (both black and white) on other parts of the joint; the digital joint is large, |