| OCR Text |
Show 46 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. [Feb. 5, backwards. They are similar to the cephalothorax in colour, and their surface is slightly granulose. The colour of the maxillse and labium is similar to that of the falces. The sternum (which is nearly round) is of a deeper hue than the cephalothorax, convex and granulose. The abdomen is rather large, oval, but projects greatly over the thorax; the short, but distinct pedicle connecting it with the thorax entering the abdomen about midway between the most elevated point and the spinners. The upper surface is shining glabrous, furnished with a very few bristly hairs, of a dull clay-yellow, marked rather irregularly towards the sides and hinder part with dull brownish ; the lower portion of the sides and hinder part are rather darker and strongly rugulose, giving the upper surface very much the appearance of a shell or carapace, whose edge is margined by a row of round, small, dull yellowish, somewhat cicatricose spots, of which there are also two others, more conspicuous or wide apart, in a transverse line on the hinder part of the carapace. The spinners are small, apparently of ordinary structure, and inconspicuous. The underside is dark brown, and at the fore extremity is a rather large and somewhat quadrate coriaceous red-brown area, at the posterior edges of which, at the outer corners, are the ordinary spiracular openings, though scarcely traceable. Just in front of the spinners, beneath the abdomen, is a long well-marked transverse fissure, which is doubtless the entrance to another spiracular organ. Many years ago (1864) I received a large spider from the Swan River, and described and figured it, but until a day or two since have never had occasion again to look at it. Examining it, however, now closely, I found on the inner side of one of the folded legs, among its numerous hairs, the very minute spider (thus till now wholly overlooked) which forms the type of the present new genus and species. EXPLANATION OF PLATE II. Fig. 1. Pachylomerus natalensis, sp. n.,£ (p. 35). a, Spider of natural size ; b, profile, without legs &c.; c, maxilhe, labium, and portion of sternum ; d, entrance to trap-door nest. 2. Idiops colletti, sp. n., § (p. 37). a, Spider, natural size ; b, profile, without legs &c.; c, eyes, from above and behind ; d, maxillse and labium ; e, entrance to nest; ./', ditto, with trap-door raised ; g, section of upper part of nest. 3. Moggridgea abrahami, sp. n., § (p. 41). a, Spider, natural size; b, profile, without legs &c.; c, eyes, from above and behind; d, portion of bark of " Kaffir Boom " tree, with nest, showing (1) upper hinged lid, (1') lower ditto, both slightly open. 4,5. Stegodyphus gregarius, sp. n., cS and § (p. 42). a, $, enlarged ; b, §, ditto ; c, profile of tf; d, ditto of $ , showing long hairs at x; e, natural length of $ * /, natural length of 9; g, eyes, from above and behind. 6. Chasmocephalon ncglectum, sp. n. cS (p. 45). a, Spider, enlarged; b, outline of cephalothorax and abdomen • c, profile of ditto; d, eyes from in front; e, maxilla; and labium '• /, hinder extremity of thorax, showing excavation and insertion of abdominal pedicle; g, natural length of spider; Ic, cephalothorax showing form of hinder part of thorax. |
