Spiders of the Georgia region of North America

This paper has developed from a study undertaken initially to determine, s far as possible from available evidence, the proper application of the _ames based by Walckenaer upon Abbot' s drawings of the spiders of Georgia. The validity of these names has not been seriously questioned since the rediscovery of the Abbot drawings in the Kensington Museum of Natural History at London in 1887 and the discussion among zoologists that ensued immediately thereafter. Most arachnologists have continued in agreement with Prof. T. Thorell who said in a letter to Dr. McCook published in 1888 in the Proceedings of the Acad, of Nat. Sci. of Philadelphia: " As to me, I do not entertain the least doubt that you and Professor Leidy, Lewis and Dali are right, and that the earlier names should in all cases be adopted. The law of priority must be respected, and is the only one that prevents arbitrariness and that gives stability to nomenclature. I think then, that in all such cases, in which Walckenaer's species can, with tolerable certainty, he recognized, his names should be preferred to those more lately published, even if such names are more commonly used, or the species better described or figured under the newer names."