Drassus lapidicolens. PI. VI, fig. 70.
Drassus lapidicolens, Blaekw., Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., second series, vol. xiv,
p. 30.
- lapidicola, Koch, TJebers. des Arachn. Syst., erstes Heft, p. 18.
— Koch, Die Arachn., Band vi, p. 28, tab. 188 (misnumbered 187 in
the text), figs. 450, 451.
Clubiona lapidicolens, Walck., Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt., tom. i, p. 598.
— Walck., Hist. Nat. des Insect. Apt., tom. ii, p. 479.
— lapidicola, Latr., Gen. Crust, et Insect., tom. i, p.: 91.
— — Sund., Vet. Acad. Handl., 1831, p. 139.
■ — Hahn, Die Arachn., Band ii, p. 9, tab. 40, fig. 100.
Length of the male, &ths of an inch; length of the cephalo-thorax, ®Bths, breadth, Jth ;
breadth of the abdomen, §th; length of a posterior leg,; ^ths; length of a leg of the third
pair, £ths.
The cephalo-thorax is large, convex, glossy, sparingly clothed with short hairs, compressed
before, truncated in front, rounded and somewhat depressed on the sides, and has a narrow
indentation in the medial line ; the falces are long, subconical, .prominent, with a tooth-like
process near the extremity, on the inner side ; the maxillæ are powerful, convex at the base,
enlarged at the extremity, which is obliquely truncated and fringed with long hairs on the
inner side, and have a large, transverse, oblique furrow near the middle ; they are somewhat
curved towards the lip, which is longer than broad, and rounded at the apex ; the sternum is
oval, with small eminences on the sides, opposite to the legs; the legs are long, robust,
provided with hairs and sessile spines, and the metatarsi and tarsi of the first and second pairs
and the tarsi of the third and fourth pairs have hair-like papillae distributed over their inferior
surface ; the fourth pair is slightly longer than the first, which surpasses the second, and the
third pair is the shortest ; each tarsus is terminated by two curved, pectinated claws, and below
them there is a small scopula ; the palpi are long, and the radial joint, which is longer than
the cubital, has a small, black, pointed apophysis at its extremity, in front, towards the outer
side; the digital joint is of a narrow, elongated-oval form, hairy and slightly convex above,
compact and pointed at the extremity, and concave near the base, on the under side; this
concavity comprises the palpal organs, which are small, not complex in structure, with a fine,
curved, pointed, black spine, directed downwards, and a minute process of the same hue near
their extremity. These parts are of a red colour, the legs being the palest, and the falces,
maxillæ, lip, anterior part and lateral margins of the céphalo-thorax, and the lateral margins
of the sternum, which are strongly tinged with brown, much the darkest. The eyes are
disposed in two transverse, slightly curved rows on the anterior part of the cephalo-thorax,
and are seated on black spots ; the posterior row is the longer, and the two intermediate
eyes, which have an oval form, and are nearer to each other than they are to the lateral eyes
of the same row, describe with the intermediate eyes of the anterior row, which is situated
immediately above the frontal margin, a regular quadrangle; the lateral eyes of the posterior
row are the smallest, and the intermediate ones of the anterior row the largest and darkest of
the eight. The abdomen is of an elongated-oviform figure, broader in the middle than at the
extremities, rather convex above, and projects a little over the base of the cephalo-thorax; it
is hairy, and of a grayish-brown colour, an obscure band of a deeper shade extending from its
anterior extremity, where there are some long black hairs, along the medial line halfway
towards the spinners, and terminating in a point; the branchial opercula have a yellow hue,
and that of the spinners is yellowish-brown.
The female is larger than the male, measuring seven twelfths of an inch in length, but
its legs are shorter, and its falces much less prominent than his. In colour the sexes closely
resemble each other.
M. Walckenaer states that the female deposits about seventy eggs, not adherent among
themselves, in a subglobose cocoon of fine, compact, white silk, measuring five lines and a half
in diameter; this cocoon is inclosed in a silken sac, which frequently comprises the female
also; it is usually attached to the under side of a stone, and has withered leaves distributed
over its exterior surface.
An adult male of this species, which was first recorded as British by Dr. Leach (see the
Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica/ article
“ Annulosa”), has been received from the Rev. Hamlet Clark. An examination of this
specimen, which was found near Northampton, in the autumn of 1853, and had recently
changed its integument, has induced the conviction that M. Koch has assigned to this spider
its appropriate situation in a systematic arrangement of the Araneidea by transferring it from
the genus Clubiona to that of Drassus, as by the figure and disposition of its eyes and the
structure of its oral apparatus it evidently appertains to the latter genus.
Drassus ferrugineus. PI. VI, fig. 71.
Drassus ferrugineus, Templeton, MS. History of Irish Arachnida.
Length of the female, ^ths of an inch.
The legs are robust, hairy, and of a ferruginous colour; the first and fourth pairs are the
longest and equal in length, and the third pair is the shortest. The cephalo-thorax is oval,
narrow and deep anteriorly, rounded posteriorly, and of a dark ferruginous hue both above
and underneath. The abdomen is ovate, elongate, or somewhat cylindrical, and cream-
coloured ; a narrow spear-shaped macula occupying the medial line at the base of the upper
part, and having three impressed dots on each side of it.
This spider was discovered by Miss MacGee in a crevice of a wall in Belfast. By the
structure of its oral apparatus it appertains to the genus Drassus, but by the form and
disposition of its eyes it makes a near approximation to the genus Clubiona.