| OCR Text |
Show 1874.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON N E W DRASSIDES. 385 furnished pretty thickly with prominent black bristly hairs, of which also there are some on the front of the maxillae. The abdomen is short, oblong-oval in form, sparingly clothed with hairs, and projects over^the base of the cephalothorax, the projecting portion furnished with numerous, recurved, strong bristles ; it has a faint indication of a narrow palish wedge-shaped marking on the fore half of the upperside. The spinners of the inferior pair are long, strong, and cylindrical, and about three times the length of those of the superior pair. The female is rather larger than [the male, but resembles it in form, general structure, and colours. The form of the genital aperture is peculiar, but not remarkable in its development; it consists of two rather small, oblong-oval, opposed openings united at their fore part; and beneath each of them is a round, red-brown, shining, corneous-looking, convex boss or spot. An adult example of each sex was found by myself under stones near Alexandria, in April 1864. Genus DRASSUS, Walck. DRASSUS NIGROFEMORATUS, sp. n. (Plate LI. fig. 12.) Adult male, length 2 | lines. The cephalothorax of this very distinct species is of ordinary form ; its colour is a clear reddish yellow-brown, clothed with a few greyish pubescent hairs on the hinder part, and some longish bristles directed forwards in the ocular region ; the normal indentations are of a deeper, duskier colour. The eyes are in two curved nearly parallel rows, the hinder one of which is the longest. The eyes of the fore central pair are the largest of the eight; they are separated from each other by about half of an eye's diameter, and each is contiguous to the lateral of the same row on its side ; those of the hinder row are equally separated from each other; and those of each lateral pair are wide apart; in fact the position of the eyes is more like that of Gnaphosa than the usual type of Drassus. Dr. Koch seems to have been in doubt to which of these genera to refer it; but the form of the maxilla appears to me to be decidedly that of Drassus. The legs are moderately long and rather strong; they are of a reddish-yellow colour, except the femora, which are quite black, and are furnished with a few hairs and spines ; each tarsus ends with two curved pectinated claws, beneath which is a small claw-tuft or scopula. The palpi are short and strong, and of a dark yellowish-brown colour. The radial joint is, if any thing, rather shorter than the cubital, and has its outer extremity continued in a long, tapering, curved, blunt-pointed apophysis, directed upwards and rather over the hinder part of the digital joint; this apophysis is more than double the length of the joint itself, and extends to half the length of the digital joint; this latter joint is of tolerable size and oval form • and the palpal organs are well developed but compact, consisting of several corneous spines and processes. |
