| OCR Text |
Show 616 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON EGYPTIAN SPIDERS. [June 20, considerably longer than the radial and cubital joints together, an oblong-oval form, somewhat obliquely truncated at its fore extremity, and clothed with whitish hairs ; the palpal organs are simple but large, and project backwards and rather outwards beneath, but free from, the radial joint, terminating in a somewhat conical point. The falces are small, straight, nearly vertical, and of a yellow-brown colour, furnished with hairs and bristles. The abdomeu is oval, pointed behind, hairy, and of tolerable size ; the upperside is brownish black, with a strong longitudinal central white or pale sandy grey stripe; this stripe is well defined on its edges, but is slightly broadest behind, and a very little notched or irregular on the edges in that part; the sides are slightly marked with brown, as also is the underside; but usually all markings on these parts are obscured by the thick grey or light sandy-grey pubescence ; the spinners are prominent, black, tipped with white. Three adult males were found in the neighbourhood of Cairo. It is nearly allied to Attus fasciatus, Hahn, but (the male, at least, the female being yet unknown) may be distinguished by its stronger and more robust form, and the distinctness of the white stripes on the cephalothorax and abdomen. It is also nearly allied to a species* abundant in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem and Jericho, and recorded (Spid. Palest, and Syria, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 322) as A. fasciatus, Hahn, with which species M . Simon considered it to be identical. Having more recently found undoubted examples, in the south of England, of the true A. fasciatus, Hahn, the Palestine examples are proved to be quite distinct, being not only very much larger, but differing decidedly in colours and in the structure of the palpi. ATTUS EFFIGIES, sp. n. Immature male, length 2f lines. Although almost denuded of hairs and pubescence, I am iuduced to describe this Spider as new to science, since it presents a very distinct pattern, and exhibits a strong likeness to a well-known European form Yllenus, V.-insignitus, Clk., from which, however, I think it is probably quite distinct. The cephalothorax is dark yellow-brown, with two longitudinal yellow bands running backwards from each eye of the posterior row ; these bands are partly clothed with white hairs, and probably are entirely and very distinctly so in uninjured specimens ; the ocular area is dark brown, clothed with a greyish pubescence, showing some converging lines on its fore part, somewhat resembling those lines which form the ^-shaped mark in Yllenus V.-insignitus, * To this Spider I n o w give the name of Attus interceptor. It may be distinguished from A. menclax (described above) by its larger size, and dark-brown sides, forming, in fact, three longitudinal grey stripes on the abdomen; the radial and hinder part of the digital joints of the palpi are also black-brown, offering a strong contrast to the white hairs with which the cubital joint is clothed; the legs, too, of the male differ in being dark red-brown and black, the tarsal joint yellow-brown, and the scopula of a sandv-grevish hue |
