| OCR Text |
Show 1870.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. 735 labium, rounded off on their outer and pointed on their inner extremities. Labium very short, broad, and somewhat semicircular in form. Sternum of a somewhat triangulated heart-shape. Abdomen oval, cylindrical; its upper extremities projecting over the spinners. CEPHALOBARES GLOBICEPS, n. sp. (Plate XLIV. fig. 4.) Male adult, length 1| line. The cephalothorax, falces, maxillee, and labium are of a brown colour tinged with yellowish; the former is clothed with a few pale hairs; and the normal grooves and indentations are amost obsolete, the caput being apparently the elevation of almost the whole cephalothorax ; in fact this part seems to have run entirely to caput, which is broad, rounded, and so considerably elevated and prominent that the clypeus is overhung and partly underneath the fore part of the caput; the cephalothorax thus reminds one of some of the species of Erigone (Walckenaera), especially W. humilis (Bl.) and W. affinitata (Cambr.). The eyes occupy a large area, being spread out over the fore part of the caput in the form stated in the "generic characters" above; those of the fore central pair are dark-coloured and slightly the largest of the eight; those of the lateral pairs are the smallest, and with those of the hind central pair are pearly white. Legs pale yellow, broadly handed with bright orange-red, and furnished sparingly with short hairs. Palpi short, of a yellow-brown colour, except the digital joints, which are dark brown; the cubital is shorter than the radial joint, which is large, expanding forwards, and somewhat produced at its upper extremity over the base of the digital joint, which last is of a short oval form; the palpal organs are well developed, but not very complex, being very similar in general form and structure to those of many typical species of " Theridion." The abdomen is of an oblong or somewhat oval-cylindrical form, and does not project over the base of the cephalothorax; it is sparingly clothed with hairs, and is of a pale yellowish-white colour ; the upperside has an indistinct pattern, and the sides are also marked with longitudinal striations of a deep brown colour; the hinder part of the abdomen is bluff and abrupt, and projects over the spinners ; this bluff portion has four rather conspicuous dark shining tubercular patches forming nearly a square, whose area is tinged with pinkish red; the underside and around the spinners are also strongly tinged with the same colour. An adult male of this Spider was contained in a fine collection of Araneidea kindly made for me in Ceylon by Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites, during the past year. Although generically closely allied to Theridion, it was impossible to include it satisfactorily in that genus; the shortness of the legs, the extraordinary form of the caput, as well as differences in the structure of the more ordinary generic parts, made it necessary to construct a new genus for its reception. |
