772 



(h) ARACHNIDA. 



By W. J. Rainbow, Entomologist to the Australian Museum, 



Sydney. 



Plates LXVII. and LXVIII. 



At the request of Captain S. A. White I have examined 

 a collection of Arachnida made by him during an expedition 

 to Central Australia. Naturally, the collection — small though 

 it be — contains some novelties; and descriptions of, and notes 

 upon, these will appear in the following pages of this paper. 

 Some of the forms collected, of course, call for' no special 

 comment. Very little has hitherto been made known by 

 naturalists of the Arachnid fauna of the interior of this conti- 

 nent; but this is not much to be wondered at when we 

 consider the arid nature of the country and the difficulties 

 and hardships of travel. 



In 1896 Mr. H. R. Hogg, M.A., worked out the Araneidae 

 of the Horn Exploring Expedition in the ''Report of the Work 

 of the Horn Scientific Exploring Expedition to Central Aus- 

 tralia, Part ii., Zoology"; later, Embrik Strand, in "Zoologis- 

 chen Jahrbiichern," 1913, contributed an interesting addition 

 to our knowledge of this branch of our endemic fauna — a paper 

 in which he not only recorded some species already described, 

 but gave descriptions of forms new to science; finally, in 1914, 

 my esteemed friend, Dr. R. H. Pulleine, of Adelaide, in the 

 ''Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia," vol. 

 xxxviii., published a brief list of a srnall collection of Araiieulae 

 made by Captain S. A. White. Each of the papers referred 

 to above are of value, inasmuch as they extend our knowledge 

 of range and distribution. Some of the species enumerated by 

 these authors are also recorded below, as they form part of the 

 collection submitted to me ; but in addition to these some new 

 genera and species are defined. The new material includes 

 some particularly interesting forms, such as Aganippe whifei, 

 in the Avicularidae ; Argyrodes binotata, in the TheridUdae ; 

 two species of Argiopidae, for which I propose the names of 

 DoJojihones intricata and D. thomisnides ; and two Thoffiisidne 

 — Timarus punctatus and Diaea pidleinei. 



Of great interest is the announcement of the occurrence 

 of the family Prodidomidae in Australia. The species referred 

 to, while being a true Prodidomid, renders the creation of two 

 subfamilies, as well as that of a new genus and species, neces- 

 sary, and fuller details of this interesting fact will be found a 

 little further on in this paper. Another interesting species. 



