OCR Text |
Show 1870.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. 741 four form nearly a straight row across the upperside of the fore part of the caput; and in front of each lateral eye of this row is another nearly contiguous to it, and about an eye's diameter from the lower margin of the clypeus. Legs neither very long nor strong; relative length 1, 2, 4, 3, between 2, 3, and 4 there is but very little difference; the metatarsi of the hinder pair are furnished on the outer sides with " calamistra," and the tarsi end with three curved strongly pectinated claws, of which the lower one only appeared to differ from the upper ones in size. Maxillee strong and rather long, curved and inclined towards the labium, of nearly equal breadth throughout, and rounded at their extremities. Labium moderately long, broader near its base than at the apex, which is truncated. A supernumerary mamillary organ, or pair of short united spinners, is situated beneath, or in front of, the usual ones, which are rather strong, prominent, and are projected in the same plane as the abdomen. RHION PALLIDUM, n. sp. (Plate XLIV. fig. 8.) Male adult, length f of a line. The general colour of this interesting little Spider is a pale amber-yellow, marked and mottled with cretaceous white; the colour of the cephalothorax is rather deeper and brighter than that of the abdomen, the upperside of which last is almost entirely suffused with white, longitudinally and transversely intersected with yellowish lines ; the sides of the cephalothorax are slightly radiated with dusky, the white being principally in the median line. The four eyes of the hinder row are nearly of the same size, the two centrals being nearer to each other than each is to the lateral on its side; the two eyes forming the front row are the largest of the six and widely separated from each other; each is almost, but not quite, contiguous to the hind lateral on its side, with which it is seated apparently on a small common tubercle. The legs are furnished with hairs only ; the "calamistra" on the metatarsi of the hinder pair are formed by fine hairs not very thickly set, nor very conspicuous. The palpi are short; the radial is shorter than the cubital, and not quite so strong; it has near its upper extremity, rather on the outer side, a small but short, conspicuous, bluntish-pointed, prominent black spine; the digital joint is longer than the radial and cubital together, it is oval in form and produced at its extremity like the digital joints in the palpi of some species of Tegenaria ; the palqjal organs are well developed but simple in structure, consisting apparently of a corneous lobe with a roundish surface, and furnished with a slender black filiform spine, which issues from near their inner extremity, and, curving round on the inner side of the digital joint, terminates in a fine point near their base on the outer side. Falces moderate in length and strength, and of the ordinary form. Sternum heart-shaped. |