OCR Text |
Show 326 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON [Apr. 20, straight, spine-like bristle projecting forwards near the outer side of its fore extremity ; and the digital joint is enlarged in a similar sub-angular form near its base on the inner side. In the examples examined the colours cannot be depended upon ; they had evidently not long since effected the final moult, and thus the uniform colouring was of a pale whitish straw tinge, which would, no doubt, have shortly deepened into the permanent colours of the adult spider; from such indications, however, as there were, it seemed probable that the final colours would be very like those of E. sylvatica. Tbe difference in size between these two species is very marked, the length of E. sylvatica (taken from several adult examples) being 1| line, while that of the present Spider is nearly a line less. While, therefore, I do not hesitate to characterize the present Spider as a distinct species, it is yet almost the only one known to m e in which so great a similarity in the palpi and palpal organs is joined to so tangible a difference in the form of the caput and position of the eyes. Numerous species are known whose caput and eyes present no tangible difference, while the palpi and palpal organs "are very distinct; but the converse is exceedingly rare. T w o adult males were received from M . Simon, by w h o m they were found at Troyes, in France, in 1871. ERIGONE NEMORIVAGA, sp. n. (Plate XLIV. fig. 3.) Adult male, length 1 g line. The cephalothorax (as well as the falces and sternum) of this Spider are of a dull orange-yellow colour and glossy ; the caput is distinctly, generally, and convexly, but not very greatly, elevated above the level of the thorax ; running backwards longitudinally from behind each lateral pair of eyes is a small elongate indentation ; the clypeus, whose height equals, if it does not exceed, two thirds of that of the facial space, is impressed below the eyes, but projects at its lower margin ; and the ocular area is furnished with a few slender bristly hairs. The eyes do not differ greatly in their relative size; they are in the ordinary position on the front slope of the upper part of the caput, and are all rather prominent, being seated on black tubercles; those of the hind central pair are rather nearer to each other than each is to the hind lateral on its side, being separated by a little more than a diameter's distance; those of the fore central pair are smallest of the eight, and are near, together, though distinctly separated from each other; the interval between each of them and the hind central eye nearest to it is as nearly as possible equal to that between each hind central pud the hind lateral on its side; those of each lateral pair are contiguous to each other and obliquely placed ; and each fore lateral forms, with the fore and hind central eyes on its side, as nearly as possible an equilateral triangle. The legs are rather long and tolerably strong, their relative length being 1, 4, 2, 3 ; they are furnished with hairs and a few short, slender, inconspicuous, erect bristles on their uppersides |