OCR Text |
Show 1876.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. 613 the ocular area is broader than long, the line formed by the two posterior eyes being considerably longer than that formed by the four anterior ones ; the fore centrals are of a dull mother-of-pearl colour, unusually large, but not quite contiguous to each other, and each is also very near but not quite contiguous to the lateral of the same row on its side. The minute eyes of the middle row are rather nearer to the posterior than to the anterior row, and each is placed within the straight line formed by the lateral eyes of those two rows respectively. The legs are rather unequal in length ; those of the first pair (in the male) are the longest and strongest; the femora, genua, and tibiae of this pair are of a bright yellow-brown, the metatarsi considerably darker, and the tarsi pale yellow, the tibiae and metatarsi being fringed above and below with strong prominent hairs ; the legs of the third pair are, in the males, next in length (in the females they are rather longer than those of the first pair), those of the second pair being a little shorter than those of the fourth ; these three pairs are yellow, slightly marked with dusky brown, but not regularly annulated ; all are furnished with spines, those beneath the tibiae and metatarsi of the first pair being the longest and strongest. The palpi are short, and yellow in colour, the radial and digital joints bright yellow-brown; they are furnished thickly with hairs, chiefly white, and some of them, especially on the cubital, radial, and digital joints long and strong ; the radial is rather shorter than the cubital, and has its extremity on the outer side produced into a very slightly curved, tolerably strong, tapering, deep-reddish-yellow-brown apophysis, almost, if not quite, equal in length to the joint itself; the digital joint is oval, and as long if not rather longer than the radial and cubital joints together; the palpal organs are well-developed, but simple in structure, with a strong curved tapering corneous process or spine lying along their inner side. The falces are small, of a deep blackish red-brown colour, and clothed with white squamose hairs near their base in front. The maxilla and labium are similar to the falces in colour, tipped with pale yellowish. The sternum is yellow, oval, and clothed with coarse whitish hairs. The abdomen is small, oval, blunt behind, truncate before, and clothed pretty thickly with hairs; its colour is sandy yellowish, marked above and on the sides with dark brown, but forming no very definite pattern ; the markings on the upperside are joined to the lateral ones, and form somewhat oblique but irregular lines ; a central dark marking along the middle of the fore half of the upperside is also occasionally traceable; the spinners are moderately long and prominent. The female is larger than the male, and is of a generally paler hue; the fore central eyes are also of a dull opaque whitish porcelain hue. Two adults of each sex were found at the roots and among the stems of scattered herbage on the desert near Gebel-y-Silsilis, in |