INSECT ODDITIES. 261 



spinnaret occupies a position on the under surface of the body that is precisely 

 coincident with the creature's centre of gravity. The long-tailed Spider here figured 

 was obtained by the writer in the Botanical Gardens of Ballarat, Victoria. A closely- 

 allied representative of the same genus was also found by him in some abundance, 

 spinning an irregularly meshed snare among the Ti-tree bushes, Melaleuca, on the 

 banks of the Prosser's river, Tasmania. The bright-green, crimson-striped Spider, 

 apparently a species of Tetragnatha, represented in Fig. 11 of the Insect Plate, is 

 more notable for its abnormally elongate shape and for its conspicuous resemblance, 

 when it rests with extended legs, to the many red- veined foliaged plants among which 

 it takes up its abode. This single example noted was collected by the writer in the 

 Botanic Gardens at Bowen, Central Queensland. 



A remaining spider form included in Chromo-Plate IX. invites brief notice. 

 It is represented by Figs. 12 to 15. This type is apparently referable to the genus 

 Theridium, and is remarkable more especially with relation to its habits and the 

 singular environments of its egg cocoon! It was observed by the writer in the 

 neighbourhood of Derby, at the head of King's Sound, Western Australia, taking up 

 its abode in the fissures of the gnarled trunks of the older Baobab or Bottle-trees, 

 Adansonia rupestris. The spider, a small brown one, presents no special features of 

 interest, and neither does the web, which is of the irregularly meshed order. 

 Suspended in the snare, however, there is generally present a little cupola-shaped 

 mass, which, on near examination, is found to be composed superficially of the 

 emptied skins and disjointed limbs of a small species of black ant upon which this 

 spider habitually feeds. The interior of this ant aggregation is hollow, and is found 

 to contain in its upper confines the spherical silken egg cocoon of its fabricator, 

 which it has most effectively and ingeniously concealed from view. It sometimes 

 happens that two or three of these egg domes are suspended within one web, and 

 while the bee-hive or cupola shape depicted in Plate IX. represents the most ordinary 

 form, they are occasionally of a much more slender and elongate contour. An allied 

 American form, Theridium riparium, is recorded in Dr. McCook's treatise as forming 

 somewhat similar elongate conical nests, the external surface of which is strengthened 

 and rendered opaque by the addition of a thickly entangled coating of minute pellets 

 of clay. 



A common, but at the same time notable, spider in the Queensland "scrubs," 

 which also frequently takes up its abode in the Brisbane suburban gardens, is 

 portrayed on the following page. It is apparently identical with the Argiope 



