168 Transactions.—Zoology. 
movements, however, were not fast; but it wore such a strange appearance 
—black, with its pure white palpi, and its uplifted threatening chele, that 
I, bearing in mind our small blackish katipo spider, was on my guard; 
perhaps too much so.* 
In that same year, however, I found, in the evening, among my thick 
long mosses in my vasculum, one of these Arachnids, or rather the anterior 
half of one without its abdomen, ete.; it was still living and could crawl 
slowly. Subsequently, in 1881, I secured another and a perfect specimen 
from among the thick-growing and long Plagiochila subsimilis (and then not 
on the surface, but within!) How the creature can possibly manage to crawl 
through such fine and dense vegetation is a marvel to me. It generally 
keeps its long falces upright, or inclining towards its back, and bent at a 
sharp angle, and sometimes moves them forward alternately in progression, 
much like a hand or a foot: and sometimes, like its congener Chelifer (supra), 
holding them up with distended claws in a threatening attitude. 
My second lot belong to the family Araneide (or True Spiders), and 
contain three fine species; two of them are, I believe, quite new, and 
one has been already described in the Trans. N.Z. Inst., but is still little 
known. 
You will, no doubt, remember that at our ordinary meeting held here in 
August, 1881, I had the pleasure of bringing before you specimens of a fine 
spider I had then recently received from one of our country members; at 
that time I promised to lay before you a paper} containing its description, 
habits, ete., and this I now do. 
From that kind country member, Mr. J. Drummond, who resides at Te 
Ongaonga, I learn (in answer to several letters) that in July, 1881 (our wet 
season and mid-winter), while engaged in making a drain in some low-lying 
swampy land, he noticed several large spiders, which were dug up from 
about twenty inches to two feet under the surface, and though amongst 
black swampy soft soil, they always came out of the mud quite dry and 
clean, with their skins looking like velvet. 
* Having here alluded to the bite of the katipo spider, I should also say (lest I should 
be misunderstood) that I do not support those monstrous stories respecting the effects of 
its bite, which some have related; (some of those accounts are, I think, to be found 
recorded in the early volumes of the Trans. N.Z. Inst. ) In past years I had several cases 
of persons bitten by the katipo brought to my notice, including Europeans and Maoris : 
some of them I had also to attend to medically, and so watched the cases; and while the 
effects of the bite are generally pretty severe at first, they are transient, being completely 
over by the second day, leaving no after effects; and never, I believe, caused death, or 
anything like it. 
T See Proceedings, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xiv., p. 566. 
