224 Dr. W. Rae Sherriffs on 



above seventy. The web-mass has no definite architectural 

 plan, and is very dirty and dusty and covered with the 

 remains of victims, cf. flies, beetles, bugs, ants, grasshoppers, 

 and dragonflies. 



The male is almost as large as the female. Both sexes are 

 very inert when captured, and lie quite still if touched. They 

 work only during the darkness. 



The web-mass or central spindle is the u large saccular 

 nest" mentioned by Pocock. Many cocoons are present 

 within the spindle, each measuring 6 mm. in diameter, as 

 Jambunathan has already noted. The cocoons are white, 

 densely spun and irregularly circular in outline, disc-shaped, 

 and of one piece, which bursts in the middle when the young 

 emerge. The number of eggs enclosed varies from 30-50 

 almost. Gravely, in Rec. Ind. Mus. xi. plate 30, shows 

 the nature of the web in detail. 



S. sarasinorum is tending to become a pest of tea in the 

 Nilgiris, because the web-mass is woven closely round the 

 tips of the branches of the tea-bushes, preventing the buds 

 from developing and the tender leaves, gathered for tea- 

 making, from forming. 



A planting friend who sent me the spiders had them 

 named " Tea Mealy Bug." He later sent me two cuttings 

 of branches with the web-masses representing spiders from 

 three bushes, 105 spiders in all, 128 ? , 36 <$ , and 57 cocoons. 

 Jambunathan gives the proportion of the sexes as $ : $ : : 

 7:1, but my result yields <J : ? : : 1 : 3 roughly, with the 

 $ much more numerous than the $ , as they always are. In 

 the case now cited, 2 acres out of a 9-acre block were affected 

 at a level of 4000 feet, and as the tea-bushes were planted 

 2500 to the acre the number of spiders present must have 

 been very great. Since the growth of the colonies is not 

 rapid and the spiders can easily be removed by hand and 

 destroyed, there does not seem any likelihood of the spider 

 ever becoming a serious pest, unless sheer neglect allows 

 Stegodyphus to get a firm hold. Stegodyphus sarasinorum is 

 is the only spider I have met with as yet that can be con- 

 sidered of economic importance. 



Locality. Madras city; Chingleput j Pamban (April), 

 the desert, sandy region in the extreme south next Ceylon. 

 Within Madras it is found throughout the year and so 

 probably for the whole of South India. Kotagiri (6000 feet) 

 and Hillgrove (4000 feet) on the Nilgiris (April-July) ; 

 Ennur (September). At the end of September, while 

 ascending the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, I saw from the 

 train the web-masses of S. sarasinorum at Kolar Station 



