OCR Text |
Show 286 ON SPIDERS F R O M D U K E - O F - Y O R K ISLAND ETC. [Mar. 20, collection. The examples from which Mr. Butler's description was made were dried, and consequently had lost the characteristic olours and markings of the abdomen. The upperside of this part is orange-yellow, with a very broad nearly black transverse band on the fora extremity, having, however, a narrow orange margin in front of it, but comprising the ordinary boss-like markings on the anterior margin: these, as well as the rest of the markings, are of a deep red-brown colour, as are also the six abdominal spines, of which the two posterior pairs are of a brilliant deep purple and magenta metallic hue. The underside is black, studded thickly with minute shining tubercles, and blotched sparingly with reddish orange-yellow spots and patches. The sternum is black with a large, round, very conspicuous, reddish orange-yellow spot in the centre. The cephalothorax and falces are of a rich black, and the legs of a black-brown colour. Family THOMISIDES. Genus SAROTES, Sund., = OLIOS, Walck., ad partem. SAROTES VULPINUS, sp. n. Adult female, length very nearly 10 lines. The cephalothorax is longer than broad, round-oval behind, and constricted laterally at the caput; its colour is a foxy yellowish red, paler at the occiput, and with an indistinct longitudinal central line on the middle part of the caput; and the surface is clothed with greyish sandy hairs. The eyes are in two transverse lines, the foremost straight, the hinder one slightly cuned, the convexity of the curve directed backwards. They are of the same colour as the cephalothorax ; the four lateral eyes are seated in front of a tubercle and are considerably the largest of the eight; the rest scarcely appear to differ in size. Those of the posterior row are separated by equal intervals of nearly about two diameters' extent; the interval between the fore centrals is equal to a diameter, and each is very near but contiguous to the fore lateral eye on its side. The height of the middle of the clypeus is equal to the diameter of one of the fore central eyes : the interval between the eyes of each lateral pair is equal to the diameter of the fore lateral eye; and the fore central eyes form a square whose anterior side is the shortest, and its longitudinal rather greater than its transverse diameter. The legs are long, strong, furnished with hairs, bristles, and strong spines, and of a yellow-brown colour. All have the tarsi and metatarsi covered with a scopula or pad of close-set hairs on the underside. Their relative length is 2, 1, 4, 3. Those of the first and second pairs are much the longest; but there is not much difference between them ; and this is also the case with those of the third and fourth pairs. The palpi are moderate in length and strength, similar to the |