106 SCORPIONS, PEDIPALPI AND SPIDERS COLLECTED BY DR WILLEY 



New Britain. 



Allied to the Ceylonese species 0. hobsoni, 0. P. Cambridge (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1877, 

 p. 562, PI. LVI. Fig. 3), of which the British Museum has received specimens from Pundel 

 Oya in Ceylon (E. E. Green) but differing in the smaller size and greater number of the 

 tubercles of the abdomen, the smaller size of the median tubercle on the cephalic area 

 of the carapace and the absence of a tubercle from the middle of the area on the upper 

 side of the abdomen circumscribed by the four sigilla. 



From the remaining three species of the genus, namely, 0. sexspinosus, Thor. (Bihang 

 Svenska Vet. Akad. Handl. xx., PI. IV, no. 4, p. 48, 1894), from Burma, 0. clypeatus, 

 Simon (Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 1896, p. 473), from Amboina and 0. monstrosus, Keyserling 

 (Arachniden Australiens, Pt. xxxm., p. 114, PL IX, Fig. 2, 1886), from Peak Downs, 

 Queensland, 0. bicolor differs in having the prominences of the carapace low and tuber- 

 culiform, not spiniform. 



The cocoon of 0. bicolor which Mr Willey brought back, consists of a spherical case 

 of pale yellow silk suspended at the upper end by a slender stalk of the same material 

 and marked with irregularly arranged rows of excrescences, often of a dark brown colour, 

 which run from the direction of the stem towards the opposite pole. Several cocoons 

 are placed together and made to adhere one to another by threads of fine silk. 

 PI. X. Fig. 4«, 



Genus. Gasteracantha, Sund. 



Gasteracantha brevispinu, Dol. 



Tijdsche Nederland-Indie xm., p. 423, 1857. 



Loc. New Britain. 



Ranging from Burma to the Fiji Islands. 



Gasteracantha taeniata karschii, Thorell. 



Ann. Mus. Genova (2), v. p. 2:10, 1*87. 



Loc. New Britain. 



Dr Thorell based his species G. karschii upon a single example from New Britain 

 and pointed out that it differs from the typical G. taeuiutu in having a single large 

 yellow spot on each side of the ventral cone. The British Museum has an example from 

 Mioko, off New Britain, presenting this feature; but the series of specimens obtained 

 by Dr Willey shows that the character is inconstant. In most of the specimens, in fact 

 there are two spots on each side of the cone as is usual in G. taeniata and 

 its allies; but in two examples the spots are united, whereas in another they are 

 united on one side of the cone and separated on the other. But although the 

 character most relied upon by the describer of the species thus falls to the ground, 

 G. karschii may, I think, be recognised as a subspecies of the Papuan taeniata by 

 its shorter, thicker and at the same time more clavate median spines and by the 

 anterior spines being smaller, closer to the medians and directed more forwards. 



In one of the specimens the anterior black transverse band is mesially inter- 

 rupted, involving only the external two sigilla, its median portion being represented 



