OCR Text |
Show 560 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON N E W ARANEIDEA. [June 1 9, The palpi are short, and similar to the legs in colour and clothing. The falces are tolerably long and strong, subconical, straight, perpendicular, and of a yellow-brown colour. The maxillee are moderate in size and strength, broad and rather rounded at their extremities, much bent downwards and backwards, and inclined towards the labium. They are of a rather orange yellow-brown colour, the extremities being pale yellow. The labium is small, short, and of a semicircular form; its colour is yellow-brown, and the apex pale yellow. The sternum is heart-shaped, hollowed at its fore extremity, and of a pale orange yellow-brown colour. The abdomen is large, very convex above, of a short broad heart-shape when seen from above, and hollowed at the middle of its fore extremity on the upperside. Its cuticle is of a semicorneous nature; and besides numerous blunt, conical, various-sized, but smaller tubercles (principally on the sides and hinder part), there is a large, circular, shining, glossy one on each of the fore corners (or rather shoulders) of the abdomen. These large round tubercles are of a yellow-brown colour, rather brighter in hue than the rest of the abdomen, the underside of the latter being the palest. The tubercles on the sides and hinder part are symmetrically placed; and four form a curved transverse line with the two large circular ones. On the middle of the upperside are six, not very large, round, sigilliform spots or markings, in two longitudinal lines of three each. The sides and underside have numerous, small, somewhat similar, impressed spots, connected with each other by pale brown venose streaks. The whole of the abdomen, excepting the two circular tubercles, is dotted with fine silky hairs ; those at the extremities of the conical tubercles form a tuft, apparently connected for a little distance from their bases and then spreading out in all directions, giving the abdomen a very peculiar and characteristic appearance. The spinners are short, tolerably strong, and two-jointed, those of the inferior pair being much the strongest. The genital aperture is very small and inconspicuous. A single example of this very remarkable Spider was received from the banks of the river Coanza, in West Africa, where it was found in 1873 by Mr. Henry Rogers, of Freshwater, Isle of Wight. CYRTARACHNE FURCATA, sp. n. (Plate LVI. fig. 2.) Adult female, length 6 lines. Length of the example described (an immature female) nearly 4\ lines. The cephalothorax of this Spider resembles that of C. longipes in the elevated prominences on which the central and two lateral pairs of eyes are traced, but differs in the much more prominent clypeus. There is also on the occiput a strong, furcate, somewhat spiniform eminence, the height of which is a little greater than that of the central ocular eminence ; the prongs of this occipital eminence are blunt-pointed, and range in a line with the central ocular one; also in a line between the occipital one and each of those bearin°- |