OCCASIONAL NOTES. 



No. 2. 



OVA-SACS OF ARACJJNUKA TKILUBATA. frq. 



Hy \\ . .1. Rainbow, Entomologist. 



(Plate xvii.) 



In the early pai'l ot May of this year, Mr. W. F. Howletl, 

 of Eketaliuiia, New Zealand, presented to the Ti'iistees of this 

 Museum, a spray, measuring about 10 inches in length, con- 

 taining a large series of cocoons or ova-sacs of a spider, Aracl^- 

 nura trilihatK, Urq., wliich species occui's also in Tasmnnia. 



In his letter, dated May 2, 191(>, Mr. Howlett- says: — ''A 

 friend handed me enclosed, ajjparently the egg-cocoons of a 

 social spider . . . He sa3S the spiders have all gone away 

 now ... I opened one cocoon and found it full of well 

 developed spiders . . . My friend says the spiders had a 

 veiy large web 'right across the ti'ack.'" In a further letter, 

 dated June 2, 1916, Mr. Hewlett says: — "It is 'social,' and 

 of course makes geometric webs." 



The species is described by Urquhart^ as being 9i mm. long 

 in the 2> ^"^^ ^ mm. in the ^. The 9 ^^^^ ^ glossy black 

 cephalothorax and glossy green abdomen, the latter terminating 

 in tliree blunt, transverseh' wrinkled protuberances. In the 

 (^ the cephalothorax is dull brownish-black, while the abdomen 

 somewhat resembles the 9 i'' colour and form, but is com- 

 paratively broader at the posterior end. Mr. Howlett, in his 

 letter dated June 2, 1916, says: — "The spider is unniistake- 

 able. From memory 1 call it pure black, with three humps at 

 end of abdomen. The young have a white patcli on the back." 

 In respect of the latter, 1 opened one of the cocoons and took 

 therefrom upwards of fifty individuals, some of which were 



1 Urqul) art— Trans. N.Z. Inst., xvii., 1884., p. 37, pi. ix., figs. 3, 3a-3/; 

 Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasm., 1892 (1893), p. Hi*. 



