Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/159

 again immersed in spirit. This would (I have frequently found it so in other spiders) cause even the hard integument of the cephalothorax to contract, and so cause the eyes to shrink up together into a closer group, as well as to sink down into the cuticle, making some of them appear smaller than they really are. Alternate drying and wetting again in spirit would also account for the yellowish brown colour of the eyes, whereas in the male of the Mentone spider the eyes of the hinder row are pearly grey, and of the front row dark grey. Beyond these differences I can find no distinction between them.

The male of the present species is very nearly allied to both N. incerta (p. 276) from the Pyrenees, and N. dubia (p. 280) from Digne, of both of which, as remarked (l.c.), the male sex alone is known to me; it is, however, larger than either, more richly coloured, and more distinctly marked. In all three species the elongated portion of the palpal bulb has a simple point, but in the present spider it is not drawn out so finely and gradually: some portion of its extremity being, though very fine yet really, cylindrical, and not tapering off into a hair-like termination; the general direction of the palpal bulb is parallel with the radial joint, but the point which is equally curved is directed outwards and a little downwards; the radial joint has four spines at the fore extremity on the upper side (in one of the examples there were however seven on the radial joint of the right palpus), and the genual joint of each leg of the third pair, in both examples from Mentone as well as in M. Ausserer's example from Nice, has three spines on its outer side. This character was not remarked upon in the de