OCR Text |
Show 1875.] NEW SPECIES OF ERIGONE. 201 aperture is characteristic, though somewhat resembling that of several others of this group, nearly allied to each other. A single adult example of each sex was received in 1872 from M. Eugene Simon, by whom they were (with others of the same species) captured at Sappey, in France; an adult male of the same species, but darker and more richly coloured, had been previously received from M . Simon, from the neighbourhood of Paris, but was at the time mistaken for E. monoceros. ERIGONE NIGROLIMBATA, sp. n. (Plate XXVIII. fig. 10.) Adult male, length rather less than 1 line. The whole of this exceedingly remarkable Spider is of a pale yellow colour, the cephalothorax and legs being rather the clearest and brightest, the former margined laterally with black. The caput is greatly elevated, the upper portion being roundish oviform and directed backwards; the part occupied by the fore central pair of eyes is prominent; and the height of the clypeus exceeds half that of the facial space ; a strong longitudinal indentation or excavation on each side divides the upper part of the caput from the lower ; the upper part is furnished with a few fine pale hairs. The eyes are very unusually placed; those of the hind central pair, instead of being placed on or near the summit of the elevated oviform portion, are placed at its lower part, one on each side immediately above and behind the hind lateral eye, and almost contiguous with it; the eyes of each lateral pair, together with the hind central one on its side, form a short curved line on each side of the caput; those of the fore central pair are the highest up of all, instead of being, as in most other species, the lowest. The legs are slender, moderate in length, their relative length (apparently) 4, 1, 2, 3; they are furnished with hairs and a few prominent black slender spines and bristles, those on the two hinder pairs being the most conspicuous ; whereas in the adult female those on the two foremost pairs are strongest, particularly a row on the inner side of each of the tibial joints, which are long, strong, and very similar to those on the corresponding legs of E. sundevallii (Westr.). The palpi are moderate in length aud strength ; the cubital joint is longer than the radial; the latter is prominently pointed beneath at its fore extremity, and has an almost perpendicularly erect apophysis springing from near the fore part of its upperside; this apophysis appeared to be nearly or about half the length of the joint, and is truncate at its extremity, which is rather broader than the middle portion: the digital joint is oval, produced at its hinder extremity into a long, strong, curved, corneous apophysis, terminating in a tapering, twisted, or sinuous, sharp, filiform spine, whose point is directed outwards: the palpal organs are highly developed and complex; among other corneous processes a somewhat sinuously curved, black, filiform spine is connected with them at their fore part on the underside. The falces are small, nearly perpendicular, and armed with a few minute teeth near their inner extremities. |