AKTICiJ'l IX.-SPIDEKS AND OPILJONES FROM THE SUBANTARCTIC 



ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



By H. R. Hogg, M.A.. F.Z.S. 



PLATES VII AND VIII. 



34' 



The specimens of the Arachnidae herein described were kindly forwarded to me by 

 Professor W. B. Benham, of the Otago University, Dunedin, and Dr. Chilton, of 

 Canterbury College, Christchurch ; and I wish to thank these gentlemen for having 

 allowed me the opportunity of examining them. They were mainly collected by the 

 New Zealand Subantarctic Expedition in 1907, some few specimens having been 

 previously deposited in the collections of the Otago Museum. 



The islands from which the specimens have been collected are : — 



S. Lat. E. Long. 



Macquarie Islands . . . . . . 54° 159° 



Auckland Islands 



Snares Islands 



Campbell Island 



Bounty Island 



A record of the fauna of these islands is especially interesting and valuable from 

 its bearing on the evidence already collected suggesting an early northern extension 

 of the Antarctic continent. 



The supposition of an ancient land-link between South America, Australia, and 

 southern Africa is more or less of a necessity in order to account for the present 

 distribution of creatures which it is difficult to believe could have reached their 

 respective habitats by any other means. 



These islands, the natural remains of such an extension, supposing it to have 

 existed, contain the best remaining evidence of the route by which such migrations 

 have taken place. 



The specimens I have examined are, as is usually the case from colder localities, 

 of comparatively small size, sober colouring, and of simple type. Examples of the 

 more brilliant coloration and highly specialised forms so conspicuous in warmer 

 parts, where food in the shape of insect life is more abundant, are altogether absent. 



With the exception of genera of such world-wide distribution as Araneus, Amau- 

 robitis, Lycosa, and the Attidae, there appears to be one group only — namely, Cyhoeeae 

 — which has representatives ranging over the whole distance between South America, 

 southern Australia and its islands, and South Africa, although there are many con- 

 nections between the Australasian region and the one side or the other. 



