Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/143

 whole length spanned by a series of about five curved, or slightly angular, stoutish bars or chevrons, formed of more or less confluent, dark, blackish-brown blotches and markings; a more or less indistinct line of a similar nature also divides the fore part of the upper side of the abdomen longitudinally. There is some variety in the extent, depth, and distinctness of these markings, but the figures given (Pl. XIX., p. 229, figs. B, B 1) show the appearance of an average example.

It must be remembered that this description is made from examples in spirit of wine, and that in life the markings (especially on the cephalothorax) are often considerably obscured by the hairs on the surface; when seen through spirit the actual tints of colour are sometimes misrepresented, but the characteristic markings are seen more distinctly.

The lower part of the sides and the under-side of the abdomen are of a uniform pale dull brownish-yellow; the spinners of the superior pair are short, strong, and 2-jointed; those of the inferior pair are very minute, and near together at the base of, and almost between, the others.

Adult and immature females were found in 1873-4 abundantly at Montpellier in France, in unbranched tubular nests closed at the surface with a close-fitting "cork" lid.

In Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders, p. 92, a spider inhabiting similar nests, and found commonly at Cannes and Mentone was described as N. cæmentaria, Latr. The subsequent discovery however of a very closely allied, but certainly distinct, species in abundance at Montpellier (the locality in which the