1921.] F. H. Gravely : Fauna of Barkuda I. 403 



5^ mm., breadth 4 mm. Distinctly smaller than the females of 

 D. assamcnsis in which Hirst (1909, pp. 383-4) was unable to find 

 any structural difference from D. oatesi. The largest of the three 

 females of D. assawensis in the Indian Museum collection is about 

 20 mm. long, with a carapace 8 ram. long by 5^ broad. Thorell 

 gives the length of females of D. oatesi as 22 mm., the carapace 

 being 9 mm. long by 6^ mm. broad (1895, p. 5). The legs of 

 D. excavatus are shorter and thinner than in D. assamensis, the 

 tarsus and protarsus ot the fourth pair being together distinctly 

 shorter than the carapace instead of about equal to it (4J mm. 

 in type-specimen with carapace 5I mm. long). 



d" . Length io-ii| mm. when mature. Carapace y^\ mm. 

 long by 2J'3 mm. broad. This spider is thus decidedly smaller 

 than the male of either D. oatesi or D. assaincnsis. It differs from 

 both these species in having the tibia of thn palp about twice instead 

 of three times as long as broad, and also in the form of the tibial 

 apophysis which is very stout with an abrupt inwardbend distally. 

 The base of the protarsus of the first leg (text-fig. if) is strongly 

 excavate on the inner side, as though to accommodate the tibial 

 apophysis, and the distal border of the excavation bears a very 

 distinct group of thick-set denticles. There is no such excava- 

 tion or group of denticles in D. assainensis. 



Family BaryCHEUdae. 



Diplothele walshi, Cambridge. 



PI. xviii, fig. II. 



Diplothele '.valilii, Poc. lyou, p. ijv 



The species commonly known by this name was also described 

 by its collector, J. H. Tull Walsh, under the name Adelonychia 

 nigrostriata (Journ. As. Sac. Beng. L,IX [ii], pp. 269-270). It 

 is unfortunate that the burrow of the type specimen was not 

 described, as the empty burrow which is described undoubtedly 

 lielonged to a different and much larger species and agrees in its 

 cliaracteristics with the burrows of Acanthodon barkudensis and 

 constructor. Diplothele walshi never attains any large size, a mature 

 specimen which was taken with 3-oung in its nest being only 9 mm. 

 long ; and Walsh must therefore have been wrong in supposing 

 that the type-specimen (10 mm. long) was immature. 



I have never myself found its burrow associated with bur- 

 rows of Acanthodon. Acanthodon usually (though not always) 

 chooses firmer soil in a more exposed situation for its burrow, and 

 finds sites specially suitable for its burrows among the adventi- 

 tious roots of Banyans and other species of Ficus. Diplothele 

 walshi constructs a small chamber, usualh" in light soil under 

 bushes, often against the base of a tree. The upper wall of 

 this chamber is on a level with the surrounding soil, and is 

 pierced by two apertures, each closed by a neatly made trap- 

 door of the " wafer" type about 6 mm. in diameter in the nest 



