84 Transactions. — Zoology. 



The palpi resemble the legs in colour, and are clothed with hairs and 

 bristles. 



The falces are strong, conical, vertical, divergent at their extremities ; 

 armed with a short double row of teeth. 



The maxilla are a broad oval, slightly inclined towards the lip, which is 

 pointed, broader than long ; these parts have' a duller yellow hue than the 

 falces. 



The sternum is cordate, brown, and stamped with a yellow seven-lobed 

 embossed mark. 



The abdomen is ovate-lanceolate, of a slightly mottled creamy brown 

 colour, margined — as far as the base of the tail-like extremity — with two 

 broad bands of soft light silky hairs ; beneath these bands there are a 

 series of longitudinal undulating wrinkles ; a narrow irregular brown 

 medial line runs between the eight impressed spots. From the posterior 

 pair of spots a series of four creamy brown longitudinal streaks extend 

 along the superior surface of the tail ; this part, measured from the poste- 

 rior pair of spinners, is 5 mm. in length ; it is shaded with brown and yel- 

 low-brown tints, furnished with fine erect hairs, and' encircled with closely- 

 set wrinkles ; devoid of terminal tubercles. The ventral surface has a 

 dark brownish* hue ; two creamy-coloured bands extend from the branchial 

 opercula as far as the posterior spinnerets. The vulva consists of a long, 

 thick, pendulous yellow-brown process, directed backwards, with an orifice 

 at its extremity. 



This species — which I have placed provisionally amongst the Epeira — 

 appears to be intermediate between that genus and Arachnura ; resembling 

 the former in having spines on the 3-4 pairs of legs, and showing its 

 affinities to the latter genus by its cross-ringed tail ; which is stouter and 

 less flexible than that of the type form. 



It affects shrubs, and the lower parts of furze hedges. 

 Tairua, T. Broun; Karaka, Auckland, A.T.U. 



Genus Arachnura, Vinson. 

 Arachnura longicauda, sp. n. PI. ix., fig. 2. 



Length of mature female — body extended, 11-16 mm. ; length of cephalo- 

 thorax, 2^ mm. ; breadth, 2 mm. ; breadth of abdomen, 3 mm. ; length of tail 

 from posterior pair of spinners, 5-7 mm. Length of adult male, lf-2 mm. 

 Female. — The cephalothorax is oval, moderately convex, constricted ante- 

 riorly, a glossy dark straw colour, finely rugulose, furnished with a few white 

 hairs; the margins are edged and speckled with dark olive-green, and two 

 narrow — sometimes blending into one — stripes of a similar shade extend 

 along the medial line ; a large pale straw-coloured, semi-oval, convex lobe, with 

 a faint longitudinal sulcus, extends from the base to the centre of the thorax. 



