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Show 716 MR. F. O. PICKARD CAMBRIDGE ON [June 1 6, 7. On the Theraphosidte of the Lower Amazons : being an Account of the new Genera and Species of this Group of Spiders discovered during the Expedition of the Steamship ' Faraday * up the River Amazons. By EREDK. O. PICKARD CAMBRIDGE, B.A.1 [Received June 16, 1896.] (Plates XXXIII.-XXXV.) The Spiders described in the present paper form a first small instalment of the collection made by M r . Austen and myself during our expedition up the Lower Amazons in the s.s. ' Faraday,' under the charge of M r . Alexander Siemens. The idea of publishing the zoological results of the expedition in book-form by the Museum of Natural History has, I believe, been definitely abandoned. This being the case, I have availed myself of the generosity of this Society, and shall endeavour to publish my account of the Araneidea in small sections, as opportunity offers. The identification of members of this order is by no means the easy matter one would suppose; for not only does the material itself offer great difficulties, but almost every point of classification has to be reinvestigated ab Initio. Of the total number of species represented in the collection I am, of course, unable to speak with certainty at present, but I should probably be within the mark if I were to estimate it at about 200. H o w many of these m a y be new it is impossible to say, though they will scarcely perhaps bear the proportion of eleven new species to fourteen described, as has been the case in the present paper in the family Theraphosldae. The district of the Amazon Valley may be broadly divided into three fairly well-marked regions. First, the alluvial region of the river itself, including the countless islands and vast tracks of luxuriant river-margin. Second, the higher and drier Campos districts, sandy regions clothed with grass and spangled with flowers soon after the commencement of the rainy season, about the month of March or April. Third, that vast region significantly termed by the natives '•'•Terra Flrma,'' clothed for hundreds and hundreds of square miles by the impenetrable forest. And to these three regions I must add what I may term the " Lago district,"-the Lake district so-called-where acres of rushes, sedge-grass, and water-weeds furnish a habitat frequented by a fauna evidently peculiar. Here almost every form seems to be adapted for a semi-amphibious existence. Large Spiders 1 Communicated by the Secretary. |