Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/162

 and dark hairs; the upper side is furnished also with strong, nearly erect bristly black ones.

Each tarsus terminates with three claws; those of the superior pair are pectinated beneath, but the number of teeth appears to vary in the different legs, from six to eight. The tibial joint of the first pair is of the same character as that in the males of other species: it has a strong black curved spine directed inwards from the fore extremity of the under side, and a short bluntish-conical, but very distinct prominence at the same extremity on the inner side, not far from the base of the curved spine, Plate XX., fig. B 4 and C; the colour of the legs is yellow, tinged with orange, the upper sides of the femora being nearly black; the palpi are similar in colour, the upper side of the humeral joints being suffused with a blackish hue.

The relative length of the legs is not constant; in one example it was 4, 3, 1, 2, in the other 4, 1, 2, 3, 2 and 3 being very nearly equal. Similar variations are also found in the legs of the female.

In regard to the nest of this species, researches made subsequently to the publication of ''Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders'' have proved it to be of rather a different form from that there represented; thus in the main tube, just before the inner door is reached, there is a descending branch running off from the main tube at the same angle as the ascending branch, but in an opposite direction; in the older and larger nests the descending branch becomes choked with débris; it is more distinct in the nests of the younger spiders, and is always more or less distinctly traceable.

N.B.—In the above details there have been only