18/9.] SPIDERS FROM NEW ZEALAND. 701 



Fam. E pis in ides. 

 Genus Episinus. 



Episinus antipodianus, sp. n. (Plate LIII. fig. 16.) 



The length of the adult female is 2| lines. 



This Spider is nearly allied to Episinus truncatus, TValck., hut 

 may easily be distinguished by its shorter and distinctly annulated lens, 

 and by a difference of pattern on the cephalothorax and abdomen! 

 The form of those parts is, however, very similar in both species, 

 as also are the relative size and position of the eyes. The ocular area, 

 however, is a little more projecting in the present Spider. 



The colour of the cephalothorax is dark yellow-brown, the margins 

 and a patch on each side, near the junctional line of the caput, being 

 pale dull yellowish. 



The legs are dull yellowish, distinctly annulated with dark brown, 

 the broadest and darkest annuli being at the extremities of the 

 femora and tibiae. Their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3 ; and they are 

 furnished with hairs, a slender spine on the genua, and two on each 

 of the tibiae. 



The sternum is dark blackish brown, with a small, pale, dull- 

 coloured patch at the middle of the anterior extremity. 



The abdomen is yellow-brown, mottled and marked with darker 

 brown, blackish, dull yellowish, and white points. A tolerably re- 

 gular pattern may be traced, formed by slender angular whitish lines, 

 the vertices of the angles directed forwards ; the two longest of these 

 lines start from the conically-prominent posterior angles of the upper- 

 side of the abdomen, and meet in an acute angle towards the fore 

 extremity ; two shorter ones also proceed from the same parts, and 

 meet much further back in a more obtuse angle, within which is a 

 black triangular patch enclosed by a whitish basal line ; the four lines 

 above mentioned form a large triangular figure, within which, in a 

 transverse line, are two impressed red-brown spots margined with pale 

 yellowish. Along the middle of the underside is a broad brownish 

 band, marked along the middle with pale yellowish brown, and mar 

 gined on the sides and behind with a pale continuous stripe ; and the 

 sides, beneath the angular prominences, are strongly and conspi- 

 cuously marked with black. 



The form of the genital aperture is characteristic and quite dif- 

 ferent from that of Episinus truncatus. 



Received from the west coast of Otago, where it was found by 

 Captain F. W. Hutton. 



The occurrence of an undoubted Episinus in New Zealand is very 

 interesting, and appears to me to give us a pretty certain clue to the 

 true affinities of this genus. In ' Spiders of Dorset,' p. 80, I have 

 alluded to the resemblance of Episinus to some species of the 

 Australian genus Stephanopis, Cambr., and observed that though in 

 South America Episinus occurs in company with Spiders intermediate 

 between it and Stephanopis, it had not yet been recorded from 

 Australia. The occurrence now, however, of Episinus in a region 



