59 



Two New Nephiue from South Australia. 

 By H. R. Hogg, M.A., F.Z.S. 



(Communicated by Professor Stirling, M.D., F.R.S.) 



[Read May 3, 1910.] 



Plate XVIII. 



Among some spiders kindly sent me by Professor Stir- 

 ling, Director of the South Australian Museum, Adelaide, I 

 find the following of the Genus Nephila, Leach, collected in 

 the State : — 



Nephila venosa, L. Koch, from Sedan and other localities ; 

 ,, ifictorialis, L. Koch, from South Australia; 



,, eremiana, H. R. Hogg, from Central Australia ; 



and two other species apparently new. 



Of these I append descriptions below : — 

 Nephila meridionalis, n. sp. 



Female. — Colour: The cephalothorax is black-brown in 

 front, but thickly covered with silvery-grey hair behind the 

 eye space. At the sides of the thoracic area are three pairs of 

 black spots and one pair near the middle of the same ; also, the 

 usual pair of small black prominences at the rear end of the 

 cephalic part, and quite at the rear end under the projecting 

 abdomen a bare rhomboidal black space. The mandibles are 

 black-brown ; the lip and maxillae black-brown, except on the 

 inner and upper margins, which are red-brown. The sternum is 

 dark-red brown, with silvery-grey hair, but the bare anterior 

 portion and prominences in front of each coxa are pale-orange. 

 The legs are bright-red brown ; the coxae, trochantera, and 

 basal two-thirds of the femora being sparsely furnished with 

 fine down-lying silver-grey hairs. On the anterior portion of 

 the femora and tibiae of the first and second pairs is a thick 

 plumose bunch of brown hair, and similar on the tibia only 

 of the third and fourth pairs. On the metatarsus and tarsus 

 the hair is black. On the palpi the hair is dark-brown or 

 black on the tibial and tarsal joints ; on the remainder paler 

 brown . 



The abdomen is pale-yellow brown on the upper side, 

 slightly darker in front, and at the sides sparsely furnished 

 with fine silver-grey hairs. There are four pairs of brown 

 muscle spots on the back. On the under-side behind the 

 brown genital line a transverse yellowish space runs across, 



