124 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, XII, 
named Aranea maxima ceilonica, published in Seba’s ‘ Thesaurus,’ vol. i., 
pl. Ixvii. The true fasczata, therefore, is a Ceylonese species, 
C. Koch, who was practically the first to dismember the old genus Mygale 
of Latreille and Walckenaer, in 1850 gave to this Ceylon spider the generic 
name Scurria, Unfortunately this name had three years earlier been applied 
toa mollusk, and since it is against the rules of zoological nomenclature for 
the same name to be used for two distinct animals, Simon in 1885 proposed 
Pecilotheria to replace Scurria of C, Koch. 
Up to 1885 the genus Pecilotheria, with its supposed single species fasciata, 
was considered to be peculiar to the island of Ceylon. In that year, how- 
ever, Simon recorded the occurrence of the species from Ramnad, in the 
Madura district of S. India (Bull. Soc, Zool, France, 1885, p. 58. Touching 
the accuracy of this determination, it is permissible to have doubts; never- 
theless the discovery that the genus is not confined to Ceylon was important, 
No one, however, seems to have suspected the existenc2 of more than one 
species of Pecilotheria uy to 1895. Early in that year I worked out the 
material of this genus contained inthe British Museum, with the result 
that two well-marked, sharply defined species of the genus were found to 
occur in Ceylon, another in 8. India, and a third in the island of Penang*, 
These species were briefly described in the February number of the ‘ Annals, ’ 
The discovery of two species in Ceylon of course raised the whole question 
as to which of the two was the genuine fasciata, The two species seem to be 
equally common in the island, and it was quite certain that specimens 
of both species were preserved in the various collections in Europe and were 
passing under the name fasciata. 
Reference, however, to Seba’s original figure, imperfect in many respects 
though it be, shows that the pattern of the upperside of the abdomen in the 
original fasciata consists of a pale longitudinal band surrounded by a narrow 
dark brown border, whence narrow stripes of the same colour run on to the sides 
of the abdomen very much as is shown in the case of P, regalis in the accom- 
-panying plate. This type of coloration is very noticeable in one of the Cey- 
lonese species, but not so in the other, To the former, therefore, I restricted 
the name fasciata, and described the latter as a new species subfusca. The 
most striking differences between the two, however, do not consist so much in 
the pattern of the abdomen and carapace, as in that of the underside of the 
legs, the femoral segments of which are beautifully banded black and yelluw 
in fasciata, which in subfusca they are of a uniform chocolate-brown tint. 
The other two species that were described in that paper, namely, the one 
from Penang and the one from S, India, have the femora banded some- 
what as in fasciata, and two out of three from $, India and the one from 
Ceylon established in the following pages are similarly coloured, while the 
fourth more nearly apprcaches subfusca in having the femora unstriped. 
———— 
* For correction of this locality see note on p. 132, 
