OCR Text |
Show 1879.] SPIDERS FROM N E W ZEALAND. 691 whitish broken line on each side, with a central spot of the same hue. The surface of the abdomen is thinly clothed with short stout fine hairs. An example of this small, but very distinct, Spider was contained among others sent to me from New Zealand by Capt. F. W . Hutton. ATKINSONIA, gen. nov. Cephalothorax short, considerably convex above ; caput large, level on upperside. Ocular area slopes rather downwards and forwards, and is prominent; hinder slope steep ; clypeus rather high and compressed. Eyes as in Euryopis, Menge; four form a square in the middle, and on each side is a pair placed rather obliquely. Legs short, slender; 4, 1, 2, 3 ; furnished with longish coarse hairs and slender bristles only. Falces very small. Maxillee small, strongly inclined to the labium, which is very short, rather wide, and with a curved apex. Sternum distinctly heart-shaped. Abdomen flattened oviform, projecting well over the base of the cephalothorax; cuticle somewbat coriaceous, thickly covered with small pock-like markings, and clothed thinly with longish coarse hairs. Allied to Euryopis, but tbe form of the cephalothorax is quite different. ATKINSONIA NANA, sp. n. (Plate LIII. fig. 10.) Adult male, length ^ of an inch. The cephalothorax is of a brownish-red hue, with a small dark blackish patch at the occiput continued forwards by a line of the same colour. The eyes of each row respectively are equidistant from each other. The legs are of the same colour as the cephalothorax ; the anterior extremities of tbe femora and the undersides of the tibiae somewhat suffused with dark brown. The palpi are short; the radial is stronger than the cubital joint; the digital joint is large, oval, and has a small sharp-pointed black-tipped projection at the fore extremity. The convex sides of these joints are not (as in Euryopis and some other genera) turned inwards towards each other. The palpal organs are simple, with a rather prominent, sharp-pointed process at their extremity. The maxillee, labium, and sternum are similar in colour to the legs, and the latter is covered with small pock-like markings. The abdomen is of a rather lighter hue than the cephalothorax, thickly studded both above and below with minute dark red-brown pock-like markings, and thinly clothed with longish coarse hairs ; the upperside has three longitudinal black, and rather irregular, bands, a central and two marginal ones ; these leave a large, somewhat leaf-sbaped reddish marking, bisected longitudinally by the central black band, and dentated on its margins. The spinners are short, compact, and enclosed within a kind of sheath-like circular border. |