1893.] 229 



the H. Haddoni, Carp., recorded from Mabuiag or Murrayl Island, 

 Torres Straits. These occurred under large dead bivalve shells {Tri- 

 dacnd), and with them 1 found a good sized spider of very ordinary 

 structure and appearance, which must have been submerged, on this 

 completely isolated reef, twice every day to a depth of ten or more 

 feet. Another very minute apterous but fully adult Hemipieron, 

 bearing a close superficial resemblance to the fresh-water genus Sehrus, 

 was found not rarely at Cartier and Baudin Islands under blocks of 

 coral on sandy beaches, very little above low-water mark. 



Halohates regalis was also tolerably common in the noble harbour 

 of Port Darwin, where I took with it an undetermined species of the 

 allied genus, Salohatodes, White. The habitat of this genus appears 

 to be estuarine rather than oceanic, as I subsequently met with it in 

 a similar situation in China. On the voyage from Port Darwin to 

 Hong Kong, in November, 1891, a very fine species of Halohates was 

 observed off the coast of Qilolo, in lafc. 1° N., long. 127° E. Several 

 specimens, including both sexes in cop., were taken from the ship's 

 side, and proved to be H. princeps, White, recorded from the Celebes 

 Sea. 



I noted the appearance of Halohates in the China Sea on May 

 2nd, 1892, about 200 miles due south of Hong Kong; and in the 

 following August, a species which appears to be identical with R. 

 princeps was abundant among the Chusan Islands and off the adjacent 

 coast of China in lat. 30° N. On the 13th, I went in one of our 

 steam cutters to the head of Nimrod Sound, a long narrow arm of the 

 sea extending inland some thirty miles, and on returning from the 

 shore I saw a very large " school " of the insect congregated under the 

 stern of the boat. There were quite fifty examples in the space of a 

 square yard, and a single dip with a butterfly net served to secure half 

 that number. Halohatodes sp. was also met with in Nimrod Sound, 

 and on August 19th at Chin-hae, more than a mile within the mouth 

 of the Tung River (on which the city of Ning-po stands), I observed 

 numbers of what I took for larval Halohates, on the surface of the 

 w^ater within a yard of the bank. Unfortunately I neglected at the 

 time to catch any of these, which I more than suspect now to have 

 been Halobatodes. 



The habits of all the species which I have observed are very much 

 alike. In tropical latitudes, when a sailing ship is becalmed, or a 

 steamer is stopped for any purpose in a perfectly calm sea, it is not 

 long before little whitish creatures are seen rapidly skimming over the 

 glassy surface with a sinuous motion, and soon half-a-dozen or more 



