OCR Text |
Show 1871.] NEW SPECIES OF ERIGONE. 431 The falces are moderately long and strong; they are prominent near their base in front, and have rather a backward direction. The maxilla are strong, slightly curved, and much inclined to the labium, which is short and rounded at its apex. The abdomen is oval, moderately convex above, and projects a little over the base of the cephalothorax; it is very thinly clothed with hairs, and is of a dull pale drab-yellow colour, faintly reticulated with a paler hue; and a very small portion of its hinder extremity, including the spinners, is black. The female resembles the male in general characters and colours; the genital aperture is 6inall and simple in form. Adults of both sexes of this Spider were contained in the collection kindly sent to me by Mr. J. H. Emerton, and were found by him at Holyoke, Mass., in July 1873. It is a very pretty and distinct species, the colours yellow, orange, and black, contrasting strongly with each other. Its nearest congeners appear to be the Spiders of the group to which Erigone (Neriene) sylvatica (Bl.) belongs-the genus Bathyphantes (Menge). ERIGONE PROBATA, sp. n. (Plate LV. fig. 2.) Adult male, length \% lines. The cephalothorax is of the ordinary general form ; but the occipital region of the caput is gibbous, and the normal grooves and indentations are fairly marked ; it is of a darkish yellow-brown colour, the surface appearing to be very thickly but minutely punctuose; and there is a single central longitudinal row of nearly erect bristly hairs from the eyes to the thoracic junction. The height of the clypeus exceeds half that of the facial space. The eyes are of moderate size, and seated on slight black tubercles ; they are in two transverse curved rows, the foremost row being the shortest and straightest; those of the hind central pair are about an eye's diameter distant from each other, but nearer together than each is to the hind lateral on its side; those of the fore central pair are smallest of the eight, and are separated from each other by an interval of about half an eye's diameter, each being separated from the hind central nearest to it by the diameter of the latter, and from the fore lateral on its side by the latter's diameter; the laterals are seated obliquely on a strong tubercle, and are contiguous to each other. The legs are rather long and tolerably strong, their relative length being 4, 1, 2, 3 ; they are of a brightish yellow colour, and furnished with numerous hairs and fine bristles, some of the former being erect. The palpi are short; the humeral and cubital joints rather slender; the radial is strong, a little longer than the cubital, and spreads out on all sides, its fore half being black and somewhat irregularly but boldly notched or emarginate ; the colour of the hinder part is orange red-brown, that of the cubital and humeral joints yellow, and the digital, which is oval, yellow-brown ; the palpal organs are well developed and rather complex, with spines and corneous processes, one of the latter beneath their fore extremity being furnished with a row of fine comb-like teeth. |