RAGNI BIRMANI 229 
cum Simon (loc. sup. cit.) credidissem, nisi Cel. Cambridge, cum 
quo exempla ejus communicavi, et qui ea cum typis G. frontatae 
comparavit, has duas formas species diversas judicaverat. De qua 
re vir clarissimus hoc modo ad me scripsit: « The large middle 
spine on each side is,-in G. frontata, shorter, more uniformly 
tapering or wedge-shaped and directed [more] backwards [than 
in G. diadesmia].... This latter is nearer to G. taeniata, Walck., 
from New Guinea (at least to examples I have so named) and 
to G. panisicca, Butler, from Sarawak and Cambodja »..... In 
G. diadesmia « the four small anterior sigilla are much smaller 
in proportion than the corresponding sigilla in Blackwall’s G. fron- 
tata, being almost mere short dashes or points; similarly also 
in respect to the 4 small posterior ones. All the other sigilla- 
are on the contrary larger and bolder looking. In Blackwall’s 
types, however, there has been a small separation of the chi- 
tinous cuticle from the inner surface, which would rather hinder 
a very accurate estimate of the size of the other sigilla. On the 
abdomen of your G. diadesmia there are two well defined trans- 
verse blackish stripes or narrow bands, the anterior stripe in- 
cluding the 8 larger anterior sigilla, the posterior including the 
6 larger posterior sigilla. There is no trace of these bands or 
stripes in Blackwall’s types. I should not therefore hesitate to 
keep the two forms as separate species — at any rate until we 
know better that they are most probably identical ». 
In G. taeniata (Walck.), abdomen minus latum est quam in 
G. diadesmia, vix vel non duplo latius quam longius, quum 
contra in G. diadesmia paullo plus duplo latius quam longius 
est; in G. taeniata margo scuti dorsualis posticus saltem in medio 
plus minus late niger est, non testaceus, quare scutum in G. tae- 
niata vittas tres transversas nigras habet, non duas tantum, ut 
in G. diadesmia. (Vid. descriptionem G. taeniatae, quam in Stud., 
lesia, cet., loc. cit., p. 13. — G. frontata, Blackw., 1867 (A list of Spid. captured in 
the South-east Region of Equatorial Africa, in Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 3 Ser., 
XVI (1866), p. 463) alia est species, eademque ac G. formosa, Vins.: vid. Cam- 
bridge, On some new and little known spec. of Aran., with remarks on the gen. 
Gasteracantha, loc. cit., p. 285. 
