OCR Text |
Show 618 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON ARACHNIDA. [Julie 20, Also, at Labuan, a fine example of the order Phalangidea, but whose specific identity I have not yet been able to determine. Descriptions of new Sqjecies. Family EPEIRIDES Genus NEPHILA, Leach. NEPHILA RIVULATA, n. sp. (Plate XLIX. figs. 1,2.) Female adult, length 12 lines. Male adult, 2| lines. The cephalothorax is elevated before, depressed behind, and prominent at the eyes; it is furnished with short strongish black spinelike bristles, and is of a deep red-brown colour, approaching to black in many examples, especially on the fore part of the caput. The height of the clypeus is equal to one half of the facial space. The eyes are small and vary but little in their relative size; they are situated in four pairs or two slightly curved transverse rows, the curves being directed from each other, and the front row being the least curved of the two ; the four central eyes form nearly a square whose foremost side is rather the shortest; the two central eyes of the front row are nearer to each other than each is to the lateral, of the same row, on its side, but the distance between them is, as nearly as possible, the same as that between those of each lateral pair ; those of the hinder row are very nearly equidistant from each other. The legs are moderately long, strong, and furnished with hairs and spines; they are alternately and broadly banded with bright yellow and deep reddish brown, except the tarsi and metatarsi, which are yellowish near to the tibiae, and gradually deepen to a reddish black-brown. The palpi have the humeral joints yellowish and the rest of a deep rich reddish black-brown colour. The falces are long and massive, very prominent towards their base in front, and of a deep rich black-brown, almost black. The maxillee are similar in colour to the falces, but are edged on their inner sides towards the extremities with yellow. The labium is oblong, rather rounded at the apex ; it is about one half the length of the maxillae ; its sides are similar in colour to the falces, the central portion being yellow and somewhat in the form of a double united lozenge or dumb bell. The sternum is of a subtriangular form indented on the margins; it is of a bright yellow colour, irregularly but broadly margined with deep rich black-brown. The abdomen is of a longish oval shape; when looked at in profile it is more elevated before than behind ; it is large and projects over the base of the cephalothorax ; the upperside is almost entirely occupied by a long, somewhat oval, dull whitish-yellow marking, more or less obscured with brown ; this marking is dentated on its edges, and from each outer prominent point (as well as from each side of its foremost extremity) a somewhat sinuous yellowish-white |