1902.] SPIDERS OF THE GENUS DESIS. 101 



3. Desis vorax L. Koch. 



Desis vorax L. Koch, Die Arachn. Austral, p. 345, pi. xxix. 

 figs. 1-1/(1872). 



Loc. Upolu, in the Samoa Archipelago. 



Habits unrecorded. No specimen in British Museum. The 

 ■chai-acters given below are taken from L. Koch's figures. 



4. Desis maeinus (Hector). 



Dandrldgia dysderoldes White, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 5 (nee 

 Desis dysderoldes Walck.). 



Argyroneta marina Hectoi', Tr. N. Zealand Inst. x. p. 300 &c. 

 (1877) (in note to paper by C. H. Robson). 



Desis rohsoni Powell, Tr. N. Zealand Inst, xi, pp. 263-268, 

 pi. xii. (1879). 



Rohsonia "niarina 0. P. Cambridge, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1879, p. 686. 



Desis marinus Pocock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) xvi. p. 143 

 (1895). 



Loc. New Zealand (Cape Campbell) and E. Australia (Port 

 Jackson) ; also New Caledonia (sec. Simon). 



The only specimen the Bi-itish Museum possesses of this species 

 is the type of Dandridgia dysderoldes from New Zealand [Erehus 

 <£■ Terror). I have, however, examined a specimen of appa- 

 rently the same species belongmg to Mr. H. R. Hogg, F.Z.S., 

 which was taken between tide-marks in Port Jackson. It is 

 probably this species, i-ather than the one described below as 

 D. kenyonce, that Mr. Whitel egge refers to in the following terms : 

 " There is a veiy common species of spider found under stones 

 •about low- water mark. It appears to be covered with a short 

 pubescence which prevents the salt water from wetting the body." 

 "Watson's Bay and Taylor Bay in Port Jackson. (See Journ. R. 

 Soc. N. S. Wales, xxiii. p. 233.) 



The original account of this species given by Mr. Robson runs 

 as follows : — 



" I found a veritable spider [at Cape Campbell] quite at 



home under the water, and having a nest in an old Lithodomus- 

 hole, of which the rocks are fuU. All the spiders of this kind 

 which we have found have had nests in these holes, and always 

 -under water at all times of the tide. Over the mouth of the hole 

 the spider spins a close web, which when finished looks like a 

 thin film of isinglass and is water-proof ; and behind the film is 

 the nest and egg-sac, which last is of various shapes and contains 

 a lai-ge number of eggs. When the spider is disturbed, it goes 

 to the bottom of the pool, and if a small stick or straw is extended 

 to it it at once gets ready for a fight, advancing its long and 

 powerful mandibles for that purpose. When a small fish is placed 

 in a bottle of water with one of these spiders, the latter will 

 attack it at once, driving its long sharp falces into the fish near 

 the head and killing it instantly. Each spider seems to live in 



