JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



LINNEAN SOCIETY OP LONDON 



On the Katepo, a supposed poisonous Spider of New Zealand ; 

 extracted from a letter addressed by Thomas Shearman 

 Balph, Esq., A.L.S., to R. Kippist, Esq., Libr. L.S., dated 

 Wellington, New Zealand, 18th April, 1855. 



[Read November 6th, 1855.] 



This spider is chiefly, if not only, met with under the low 

 scrubby bushes which exist on the sand-hills along the shore ; and 

 is frequent in the neighbourhood of Otaki. They build their 

 retreat under the branches of the shrubs close to the ground, and 

 make no regular net, but irregular galleries of webbing, entangled 

 with bits of leaves and minute fragments of wood ; and judging 

 from the remains of beetles' wings, I suppose that their principal 

 food consists of insects of that class. Their nests are round, and 

 contain from fifty to sixty eggs: when first hatched, the young- 

 present a very different appearance from the full-grown spiders. 

 I have several times kept them in a bottle ; but although fed with 

 sand flies, and occasionally with fine fragments of raw beef, on 

 which I have seen them occupied, they entangle each other and so 

 get destroyed : otherwise I have not been able to obtain casts of 

 their skins. At this period they are white, dotted with black 

 spots, there being about six pairs of black dots along the body ; 

 and the legs are banded with black marks. The next stage, or 

 Linn. Pkoc. — Zoology. 1 



