Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door SpidersMoggridge, John Traherne
Science
Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders
Moggridge, John Traherne
Ants; Trap-door spiders
In the foregoing (the _Montpellier Spider_) a broad orange
yellow-brown band runs from the ocular area to the thoracic
fovea, tapering gradually to that part, where it is truncated,
forming a wedge with the point cut off. This wedge-shaped band is
charged with two longitudinal, more or less distinct, dark brown
irregularly-tapering lines, running throughout its whole length and
converging towards each other but not touching.
In the _Mentone Spider_ there are three orange-yellow-brown
well-defined bars or longitudinal lines between the ocular area
and the thoracic fovea; the central bar tapers and reaches from
the eyes to the fovea, the lateral ones never more than two-thirds
of the distance from it to the eyes, diverging a little from the
central bar as they run forwards. These two lateral bars are not
straight, _i.e._, their margins are more or less notched or roughly
angular, forming in some examples a line of a somewhat zigzag or bent
character. It may perhaps be observed that when the two dark brown
lines which run along the broad orange-yellow-brown band on the caput
of the Montpellier spider, are well marked, this also leaves three
longitudinal yellow lines, somewhat similar to those just described
in the Mentone species, but there is this difference even then (and
it is constant throughout a long series of examples), the lateral
lines in the Montpellier spider _always run through to the eyes_,
equalling in length the central line, while in the Mentone spider the
_lateral bars never reach the eyes_, always stopping short of the
ocular area, by one-half, or nearly so, of their length.
Another distinction which appears constant is the form of the
thoracic fovea; in the Montpellier species this forms a slight
but uniform curve; in the Mentone spider it is more sharply bent
at the apex (or centre of the curve), forming in most examples a
bluntish-angular line.
In the eyes there appears to be but little reliable difference; if
there be any at all constant, it seems to be that in the present
(Mentone) species the fore-laterals are constantly smaller than the
hind-laterals, and sometimes smaller than the fore-centrals. A close
examination, however, of the relative size and position of the eyes
in a series of examples, lowers one's estimation of the _absolute_
value of this character in the determination of the species of
_Nemesia_; still it is a specific character not by any means to
be overlooked, though to be used guardedly, and often with great
reservation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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