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Show 1874.] REV, O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON N E W DRASSIDES. 401 pair stronger and about one third longer than those of the superior pair. The spiracular plates are very nearly of the same colour as the rest of the abdomen, and, like it, clothed with hairs. A single adult male of this Spider was found by myself among debris of an old wall at Cairo. It may be distinguished easily by the peculiar form of the radial apophysis, and large size of the fore central pair of eyes. Genus M I C A R I A (Westr.). M I C A R I A A R M A T A , sp. n. (Plate LII. fig. 26.) Adult female, length 1| line. This exceedingly brilliant little Spider belongs to a group of the genus Micaria whose eyes are in the position of those of the genus Gnaphosa, and the abdomen connected with the cephalothorax by a distinct pedicle. M . Lucas has described two species of this group, in his work on Algerian Spiders, in the genus Drassus. Dr. L. Koch has, in his work on the Drassides, included these species as (to him) unknown species of the genus Gnaphosa, probably so allocating them from the strongly marked position of the eyes. I cannot, however, find any difference in the form of the maxillae from Micaria; and the whole appearance, form, and brilliancy of colouring (in the present instance) connects these Spiders unmistakably with Micaria rather than with Gnaphosa. Micaria armata may be distinguished at once by the palpi as well as the tibiae and metatarsi of the legs of the first pair being armed with long, strong spines. The cephalothorax is oval, rather narrow before, and but slightly constricted laterally at the caput; it is of a brownish-yellow colour, the caput being dark brown, the whole clothed with scaly hairs reflecting the most brilliant metallic tints of gold, violet, purple, and green. The eyes are in two transverse, rather widely separated, curved rows, the curves directed towards each other; the foremost row is much the shortest, and the eyes composing it are almost, but not quite contiguous to each other ; the laterals of this as well as of the hinder row are larger than the centrals; the hind centrals are oval, oblique, and further from each other than each is from the lateral of the same row on its side ; the eyes of each lateral pair are as widely separated from each other as the lateral eyes of the foremost row. The height of the clypeus is equal to the space between the fore and hind central pairs of eyes. The legs are long and slender; their relative length appeared to be 4, 1, 2, 3 ; they are of a pale yellow colour, with a strong longitudinal black stripe on the femora of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pairs, the lower part of those of the first pair being black : beneath the metatarsi and tibiae of the first pair are some long, strong, prominent, divergent spines, apparently articulated to small tubercles ; one pair of these are beneath the metatarsi, two pairs beneath the tibiae, and a single one issuing from a black spot inside each of the femora ; besides these spines the legs are only furnished, and that sparingly, with hairs. |
