440 ME. H. E. HOGG ON SPIDEES 



These are without the two small black tubercles at the rear end of the pars cephalica, 

 having in their place two triangular bare spots. 



The abdomen, which is of a rich chocolate ground-colour, speckled with silvery-white 

 hair-spots, has a broad transverse band of white hair near the base on the upperside 

 and another on the underside below the genital fold. 



The abdomen is broadest and straight in front, whence the sides ai'e parallel for 

 not quite one-third of its length, thence narrowing to near the posterior end, where it 

 slightly widens out and is bluntly rounded off. 



The first pair of legs are eight and a half times, and the fourth pair six and a third 

 times, the length of the cephalothorax, the breadth of the cephalothorax being three- 

 quarters of its length. 



Other specimens, which seem to conform to Thorell's variety walcJcenaeri, have the 

 two black tubercles on the cephalothorax ; the latter only two-thirds as wide as long. 

 The abdomen is oval, with four pairs of muscle-spots on a yellowish-grey uniform 

 ground-colour above and at the sides. Underneath is a long shield-pattern marked 

 by a pale yellow border round a brown inside, with yellow spots thereon at the anterior 

 end only; this reaches from the genital fold to the spinnerets. The palpi are yellow- 

 brown. The first pair of legs are only seven times the length of the cephalothorax and 

 the fourth pair five and two-thirds times. The coloration of the cephalothorax and 

 legs is very similar to the first-named, but the above-quoted differences seem sufficient 

 to indicate at least a new variety. 



Herr Embrik Strand has given the name of novae guinece to a partly similar 

 variety, but with a pattern on the back of the abdomen. The variations which occur 

 are considerable, but seem to run one into the other, and it is difficult to say how far 

 they can bear any definite subdivision. 



Nephila maculata, nr. var. h.\sseltii. 

 Ejieii'a hasseltii Doleschall, Act. Soc. Sci. Indo-lSleerl. v. 1859, p. 27, pi. xiii. fig. 5. 



Two females. 



The abdomen of these specimens is chocolate-brown all over, with moderate-sized 

 silvery hair-spots in four longitudinal rows on the back, but more irregularly 

 distributed on the underside. The spots are much smaller and more silvery than in 

 specimens of N. maculata, forma prinGipalis, in the Natural History Museum, from 

 Java, and there is no pronounced longitudinal stripe on the back or underside 

 as in the latter, but they have the broad, transverse, silvery streak near the front 

 end on the upperside and a similar, but less conspicuous, stripe behind the genital 

 fold on the underside. 



The sternal protuberances are all about equal in height, and there are no cephalic 

 tubercles, but two large bare depressions in their places. 



