Akt. Vll. — New England Spiders of the family Epeirid^. By J. H. Emerton. On account of their bright colors and conspicuous webs, the Epeiridje are better known than the other families of spiders and many of our species have been already described. "^J'lie general works of Koch, 1831 to 1848, and Walckenaer, 1837 to 1847, contain descriptions of many American spiders, which cannot however be identified with much certainty. The descriptions of Araneides of the United States by N. M. Hentz, published in the Journal of the Boston Society of Natural History from 1842 to 1850, are largely of southern spiders. I have however identified twenty New England species with Hentz's descriptions. Since Hentz a few northern spiders of this family have been described in the following papers. Giebel : Illinois Spiders. Zeitschrift fur Gesammten Naturwissenachaften, 1869. J. Blackwall: Spiders from Canada. Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. xvii, p. 77. O. P. Cambridge: Newfoundland Spiders. Proc. Royal Phys. Soc. Rdinb., 1881. T. Thorell: Labrador Spiders collected by Packard. Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.. vol. xvii, 1875. T. Thorell: Bulletin of Hayden's U. S. Survey of the Territories. Spiders collected by Packard in Colorado, 1877. E. Keyserliug: Beschreibungen neuerund wenigbekaunter Arteu Orbitelte. Siizungs-berichte der Isis. Dresden, 1863. Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Orbitelaj Latr. Verhandluugen der Zool. Botun. Gesellschaft in Wien, 1865. Neue Spinnen aus Amerika. Zool. Bot. Gesellschaft in Wien, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882. H. C. McCook : Epeira radiosa. Proc. Phil. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1881, p. 163. Webs of E. triaranea and other new species. Proc. Phil. Acad., 1876. Webs of EpeiridfB. Proc. Phil. Acad., 1881, p. 431 and 173; 1878, p. 124. Besides these species described from Amei'ican spiders, several of our common Epeiridse are also found in Europe and have there long been known and described. In identifying these I have been much helped by European specimens determined for me by Messrs. Thorell, Cambridge, Simon and Koch. In naming European species I have followed as closely as possible Thorell's Synonyms of European Spiders, and have g'iven the synonyms used by Simon, Blackwall and Menge. Trans. Conn. Acad,. Vol. VI. 38 Sept., 1884.
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