80 MR. H. R. HOGG ON SPIDERS 
GASTERACANTHA MINAX Thor., var. HERMITIS noy. (PI. I. fig. 6.) 
4 females. Abdomen pearl-grey above, legs, cephalothorax, and 
sternum bright orange. 
I have previously pointed out (Proc. R. 8. Vict. vol. xi. 1900, 
p. 79) that specimens of L. Koch’s species Gasteracantha astrigera 
and G. lugubris were generally found wherever there was a 
number of G. minax Thor., and that there was little or no 
structural difference between the three. I therefore designated 
the former as varieties only of the latter. 
On this small island we find associated with G. minaa not only 
these two varieties, but a third, emphasizing the fact that 
although very different in coloration they are really only varieties, 
possibly interbreeding, but all essentially the same species. 
The shape of the mandibles, mouth-parts, sternum, vulva, and 
ocelli markings on the back are the same in every case. The 
spines, however, often vary in length and shape in the same 
group of similarly coloured specimens. 
Family THOMISID &. 
Subfamily MisuMENINz. 
Group Drerex. 
Genus Dieta E. Sim. 
Diera ISOLATA; sp.n. (PI. II. fig. 7.) 
The cephalothorax is pale canary-yellow, except over the eye- 
space, which is quite white, with a few scattered fine white hairs. 
The mandibles are darker yellow for the basal half, the anterior 
half bright pale yellow with pink fangs and yellow-grey fringes. 
The lip and maxille pale yellow. Sternum dark grey at the sides 
with yellow in the middle and pale yellow-grey hair. ‘The legs 
and palpi are bright yellow, with yellowish-grey spines and a few 
whitish hairs. The claw-tufts dark grey on the legs and white 
on the palpi. 
The cephalothorax is straight in front and at the sides as far 
as the back of the eye-space, whence it is almost round, being 
very slightly longer than broad (; mm.}. It is slightly convex 
at the sides, but quite flat in the middle and a little higher 
before the rear slope, whence it slopes gradually to the front. 
On the thoracie part are faint broad shallow striations and a 
similar longitudinal fovea. 
The pedicule joining the cephalothorax and the abdomen is 
inserted into a hollow in the former. 
The clypeus slopes forward and is as broad as the median 
quadrangle of eyes is long. Both rows of eyes are recurved ; 
those of the front row are almost equidistant, the median 4 times 
their diameter apart. The laterals, whose diameters are 23 times 
