OCR Text |
Show 598 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. [Julie 20, Gen. PIRATA, Sund. PlRATA LEOPARDUS. Pirata leopardus, Sund. Lycosa cambrica, Bl. Brit. & Irish Spid. p. 32, pl. ii. fig. 14. Adults of both sexes were found in a marsh near Alexandria; and I can find no structural difference in the male palpi from those parts of L. cambrica, Bl. The colours, however, of the abdomen are more distinct and more strongly contrasted, while their disposition is the same. PIRATA PROXIMA, sp. n. Adult female, length 4 lines. The cephalothorax, looked at in profile, has the thoracic region considerably humped, and the binder slope very steep and abrupt; it is clothed with hairs, and the upper part, especially of the caput, is furnished with numerous erect blackish bristles ; the colour is yellow-brown, margined with a black line, immediately above which is a narrow band clothed densely with short white hairs, a little way above which, again, is a broader but not very regular or continuous yellowish band : from the posterior eyes a bioad yellowish tapering band runs to the hinder extremity, having within it a largish yellow-brown marking, fining off into the red-brown line which denotes the thoracic junction ; this yellow-brown marking is again divided longitudinally by a yellowish line, which also runs through the middle of the ocular area. The eyes occupy an area rather broader than long, the length being measured from the lateral eyes of the front to those of the hinder row, ignoring the upper angle of the caput, just below which the ej es of the middle row are placed ; the length of the front row is equal to that of the middle one, and its two central eyes are a little further from each other than each is from the lateral eye next to it, and are smaller than the eyes of the hinder row, the fore laterals being the smallest of the eight. The legs are strong, but not very long ; their relative length appears to be 4, J, 3, 2, though the difference between those of the first and third pairs is very small, if any ; they are of a dull brownish-yellow colour (the femora only having the faintest traces of darker annulations on their uppersides), and are furnished with hairs, bristles, and spines; the latter are the strongest and most numerous on the tibiae and metatarsi of the third and fourth pairs. The falces are strong, and of a dark reddish yellow-brown colour. The maxilla are yellow-brown, tinged with reddish ; the labium dark blackish brown, with a pale apex ; aud the sternum yellow, marked with a few not very distinct dusky brown blotches. All these parts are of normal form and furnished with bristly hairs. The abdomen fits well up to the hinder slope of the cephalothorax ; it is of a dull yellow olive-brown colour, paler on the under than on the upperside ; the normal macula along the middle of the fore part of the upperside is indistinctly visible and of a dusky brownish hue, |