intersected by obscure, curved, whitish lines, whose extremities alternate with the black spots
with which it is bordered.
The male is smaller, darker coloured, and more distinctly marked than the female. * Its
cephalo-thorax has a brownish-black colour, and the broad band in the medial line is whitish.
The thighs and tibiae of the first pair of legs, and the thighs of the second pair have a very
dark-brown hue, approaching to black. The colour of the palpi is brownish-black, and the
humeral joint is abundantly supplied with black hairs on the under side; the cubital and
radial joints are short, the latter being rather the stronger; the digital joint is oval, convex
and hairy externally, and concave within, except at the extremity, which is compact and
pointed; the concavity comprises the palpal organs, which are highly developed, complicated
in structure, with a strong, prominent, corneous process on the outer side, and are of a dark,
reddish-brown colour. The black border to the broad yellowish-brown band extending along
the middle of the upper part of the abdomen usually preserves its continuity, but in some
instances its posterior half is broken into large spots.
The customary haunts of this species are woods, pastures, and commons; but it may be
seen occasionally on the summits of the highest mountains in England and Wales. It pairs in
May, and in June the female deposits sixty or seventy spherical eggs, of a pale-yellow
colour, in a globular cocoon of light, yellowish-brown silk, of a compact texture, measuring &ths
of an inch in diameter.
M. Walckenaer considers Lycosa rapax to be merely a variety of Lycosa vorax (c Hist. Nat.
des Insect. Apt./ t. iv, p. 392); but, though nearly allied to that species, it differs from it
in size, structure and colour, and more closely resembles the Lycosa (Tarantula:) yasteinenis of
M. Koch (‘Die Arachn./ B. xiv,_p. 187, tab. 501, figs. 1401, 1402.
Lycosa herbigrada. PI. I, fig. 6.
Lycosa herbigrada, Blackw., Annals and Mag. o f Nat. Hist., second series, vol. xx,
p. 285.
— Blackw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. xx,
p. 497.
Length of the female, ^ths of an inch ; length of the cephalo-thorax, gth, breadth, ^th ;
breadth of the abdomen, ^th; length of a posterior leg, length of a leg of the third
pair, jd.
The two intermediate eyes of the anterior row are rather the smallest. The cephalo-
thorax is compressed before, depressed and rounded on the sides, and has a slight longitudinal
indentation in the medial line ; it is of a red-brown colour, the space comprising the
eyes, a broad, irregular band extending along each side, and a narrow line on each lateral
margin, having a brown-black hue ; the red-brown spaces are covered with grayish hairs, and
the medial one is abruptly contracted near its anterior extremity. The falces are powerful,
conical, and armed with a few teeth on the inner surface; the maxillae are short, straight,
and enlarged and rounded at the extremity; the palpi are moderately long, and are
terminated by a curved, pectinated claw. These parts have a red-brown hue, the maxillae
being the palest, and the palpi the darkest at their articulations. The lip is nearly quadrate,
being rather broader at the base than at the apex, and is of a dark-brown colour. The
sternum is heart-shaped, clothed with grayish hairs, and is of a red-brown hue, with an oval
space in the middle bounded by a fine, dentated, brown-black line, and has spots of the same hue
on the lateral margins. The legs are long, moderately robust, provided with hairs and sessile
spines, and are of a red-brown hue, with dark-brown streaks, spots, and annuli. The abdomen
is oviform, hairy, convex above, and projects over the base of the cephalo-thorax; it is of a
reddish-brown colour, the under part being the palest, and has on each side of the upper part
a strongly dentated, brownish-black band; these bands taper to the spinners, where they
unite, and from some of their larger exterior angles rows of brownish-black spots pass
obliquely to the sides, which are marked with other spots of the same hue ; in the anterior
part of the space comprised between the dentated, brownish-black bands there is an oblong-
oval, reddish-brown mark, bounded by a fine black line, having an acute angular point on
each side, and its posterior extremity bifid; the sexual organs, which are highly developed
and prominent, have a dark, reddish-brown colour, and that of the branchial opercula is
brown.
The male is smaller than the female, and the design formed by the distribution of its
colours is less, distinctly marked. The palpi are of a red-brown colour, the digital joint and
the outer side of the humeral joint being much the darkest; the digital joint is oval, convex,
and hairy externally, concave within, comprising the palpal organs, which are moderately
developed, not very complex in structure, and of a reddish-brown colour.
Two adult and two immature females of this Lycosa were received from Mr. R. H. Meade,
in December, 1856. The'two former were discovered by the Rev. O. P. Cambridge under a
stone, near Pennsylvania Castle, in the Isle of Portland, on the 29th of September, 1854;
and the two latter were captured in July, 1854, in Morden Park, near Bloxworth House,
Dorsetshire, by the same gentleman, who also took an adult male in the summer of 1858.
Lycosa allodroma. PL l, fig. 7.
Lycosa allodroma, Walck., Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt., tom. i, p. 330.
—- — Koch, Die Arachn., Band v, p. 106, tab. 172, figs. 410, 411.
— — Koch, Uebersicht des Arachn. Syst. erstes Heft, p. 22.
■— — Blackw., Linn. Trans., vol. xix, p. 118.
— —- Blackw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. vii,
p. 258.
-— cinerea, Sand., Yet. Acad. Handl., 1832, p. 190.