158 Robert Newstead: 
orifice and posterior to the latter by three and a half times its diameter. Ventral 
derm covered with small slender spines interspersed with eireular spinnerets. Dorsal 
derm covered with short tubular spinnerets and minute short spines, the former 
preponderating; the small area occupied by the atrophied abdominal segments, covered 
in life by the „secretionary flap“ (operculum), has the spines replaced with a few 
fine hairs, the rest of the integument being covered with circular spinnerets set in a 
distinet polygonal reticulation. 
The young adult females have three oval-shaped rings of chitine, enclosing a 
thin elear membrane, on the ventral surface posterior to the sexual orifice; these are 
arranged transversely, the median one being much the larger. A similar character 
is found in Walkeriana africana, Newst. these structures, however, are not traceable in 
the adult females. 
Habitat: D. Ost-Afrika, Lewa. VIII. 1902. Vom Stamm von Manihot glaziovü. 
Prof. A. Zimmermann leg. (Nr. 24). 
Fig. 2. Aspidoproctus maximus. ><1 (nat. size). 
Aspidoproctus maximus n. sp. (Sanders MSS.) Newstead. 
Female adult (fig. 2). Castaneous when dry, pale yellowish brown to dark 
brown in alcohol. Ovate, slightly narrowed in front, convex above; more or less 
flat ventrally; dorsum with 3 rows of deep and rather widely separated pits arranged 
in zones and taking the contour of the margin; within the zones on the thoraeic 
area are several other similar pits, and the cephalic area has two more or less 
distinet and slightly divergent carinae. Margin with a series of large white Eooth- 
like waxen appendages measuring on an average 3 mm in length; 29 of these 
appendages were present in one individual and this number may be taken as approxi- 
mately correet; but they are rarely retained in old adults. Ventral (genital) orifice 
covered by an operculum or „seeretionary flap“ (Newstead) as in Aspidoproctus pertina 
Newst. Legs extremely short. Antennae broken away in the examples submitted. 
Dorsal epidermis thickly studded with eircular spinnerets and large irregular ovate, 
