OCR Text |
Show 1874.] REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON N E W DRASSIDES. 395 The whole of the fore part, including the legs and palpi, is of a pale uniform straw-colour, thinly clothed with silky hairs, the abdomen being a little darker and duller in its hue, clothed with yellowish fine hairs, some coarse bristly ones being turned upwards over the fore part. The female resembles the male in colour and general characters, but is larger, and the form of the genital aperture is characteristic. The legs (in both sexes, but most conspicuously in the female) terminate with a small claw-tuft beneath the terminal tarsal claws, and a scopula beneath the whole length of the tarsi and metatarsi. An adult example of each sex was found under stones at Alexandria, Egypt, by myself, in April 1864. DRASSUS ASTROLOGUS, sp. n. (Plate LII. fig. 20.) Adult female, length 4\ lines. The whole of the fore part of this Spider is of a brigbtish yellow colour, the falces being slightly tinged with reddish brown, and the abdomen being of a dull pale whitish yellow. The cephalothorax is of ordinary form, but rather short and small in proportion to the abdomen, which is more than double its length ; the normal grooves and indentations are slightly dusky, and a short red-brown line indicates the thoracic junction ; the height of the clypeus is less than half that of the facial space. The eyes are placed in two transverse curved rows (the curve directed backwards); the front row is the shortest and least curved ; the eyes of the hinder row are as nearly as possible equidistant from each other ; those of its central pair are oval, but not oblique; the eyes of the fore central pair are the largest of the eight, round, and separated from each other by half of an eye's diameter; these are dark ; all the rest are pearly white, but have black veins ; each fore lateral eye is, as nearly as possible, contiguous to the fore central nearest to it; the interval between the eyes of each lateral pair is equal to about half the diameter of the hinder one ; the four central eyes form a trapezoid whose transverse is less than its longitudinal diameter. The legs are neither very long nor strong ; they are furnished with a few hairs and spines; each tarsus ends with two curved pectinated claws, beneath which is a scopula, extending backwards under a part of the tarsal joint. The falces are of ordinary form, but small, vertical, and a little prominent near their base in front. The maxilla, labium, and sternum are of normal form. The abdomen is large, oval, and considerably convex above. It is of a uniform dull pale whitish yellow colour, clothed with but few hairs, scarcely any unless they had been rubbed off. On the fore half of the upperside are the usual six impressed spots, not very distinct, in two opposed longitudinal curved rows of three each. The spinners are tolerably long, those of the inferior pair being the strongest; the genital aperture is yellow-brown in colour, simple, of tolerable size, and of a somewhat oblong form. 26* |