STCDIES IN AUSTRALIAN ARANEIDiE — RAINBOW. 11 



together as a community. No spiders wei'e forwarded w'ith the 

 first example, but from its folds I picked a quantity of exuvm, 

 which convinced me that the architects belonged to the genus 

 Ammifobius, C. Koch. I thereupon wrote Mr. Wiburd — who 

 has on different occasions presented the Trustees valuable Arach- 

 nological collections from the Cave districts — asking him to try 

 and secure some of the spiders responsible for the construction. 

 This he succeeded in doing, so that I am now enabled to describe 

 both the spider and the web. 



The larger web presented by Mr. Wiburd measures twelve feet in 

 length, and rather more than four feet at its greatest width, and 

 when hanging in, situ was festooned amongst the stalactites 

 depending from the roof of the cave. The webs are full of holes, 

 each of which had evidently been the entrance to a retreat tube. 

 These webs are closely and densely woven, and are suggestive of a 

 fabric — such as a shawl. Scattei-ed over the surface of this huge 

 web are a large number of empty cocoons, or ova-sacs. These are 

 pure white. Hat, more or less discoidal and closely woven. Each sac 

 consists of two strong, paper-like discs — an upper and a lower — 

 between which the eggs had been placed. None exhibited any 

 trace of loose, flocculent silk. The discs do not appear to vary in 

 size. A number were measured, and from seven to eight milli- 

 metres in diameter was the result obtained. 



Family (ECOBIID^. 



In my last paper of this series, I recoi'ded for the first time in 

 Australia the occurrence of the family Mimetidii^J' The present 

 paper records, also for the first time here, the family (Ecobiidfe. 

 The family is a very small one, consisting of only one genus, and 

 fifteen species. The genus (Ecobius, Lucas, is distributed over 

 " Regio mediterranea ; ins. Atlanticse j Arabia me rid.; Japonia ; 

 Nova Caledonia; America septent. et merid.; Antilla?,"" to which 

 I now add — Sydney, N. 8. Wales. 



The species occurring here appears to be, unquestionably, the 

 widely distributed CE. navus, Bl. This form has been previously 

 recorded from the islands of the Atlantic, Japan, New Caledonia, 

 Venezuela, southern parts of the United iStates, and the Antilles. 

 This distribution Simon suggests is, without doubt, due to the 

 agency of commerce. 



■2 Kainbow— Rec. Austr. Mus., v., 1904, p. 329. 



3 Simon— Hist. Nat. des Araignees, 2nd Ed., i., 1892, p. 247. 



