IN NEW BRITAIN, THE SOLOMON ISLANDS, LOYALTY ISLANDS, ETC. 107 



by a large black spot which involves the anterior pair of median sigilla and extends 

 forwards to the two median sigilla of the anterior line. 



G aster ■acantha signifer, Pocock. 



Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7), I., p. 465, June, 1898. 

 Loc. Narowal, Solomon Islands. 



Also obtained in the Solomon Archipelago by Mr C. M. Woodford and by the 

 officers of H.M.S. Penguin. 



Gasteracantha westringii, Keyserl. 



Keyserling, Sitzb. Isis Dresden, 1863, p. 66. L. Koch, Die Arachniden Austral. I., 

 p. 3, PI. I, fig. 2, 1871. 



Loc. Lifu, Loyalty Islands. 



The type of this species, a dried specimen without locality, is now preserved in 

 the British Museum. Its length as compared with its transverse width is rather less 

 than in the examples collected by Mr Willey and the posterior spines are longer in 

 proportion. Probably these differences are due to mode of preservation and not to 

 natural variation. 



Keyserling's collection also contained specimens of the same species, resembling 

 those from the Loyalty Islands, from Brisbane. Curiously enough, the author did 

 not recognise them as specifically identical with the type of his G. westringii, but 

 identified them as G. mollusca of L. Koch. The British Museum also has dried 

 examples labelled, though erroneously, ' Georgia.' This is perhaps a mistake for New 

 Georgia, the name applied to one of the islands of the Solomon Archipelago, where 

 the species very likely occurs. 



Genus. Actinacantha, Simon. 



Actinacantha aciculata, sp. n. 

 PI. X. Fig. 5. 



Colour : carapace, mandibles, labium and maxillae black, polished, legs yellow or 

 reddish, with brown coxae and the distal end of protarsus and tarsus black ; sternum 

 yellow with a narrow black margin ; upper side of abdomen pale yellow with black 

 sigilla, the black on the sigilla of the anterior row sometimes fused and forming a 

 black stripe on each side, the two not uniting in the middle line, the prominences 

 which support the spines red, spines black ; the yellow of the upper surface en- 

 croaching on the lower ; the lower side spotted yellow, a pair of large spots at the 

 sides of the area between the vulva and the spinning eminence. 



Abdomen pentagonal in form ; the anterior spine short, directed obliquely forwards 

 and outwards and upwards, barely half the length of the median spine, from the 

 base of which it is separated by a space about equalling its own length ; median 

 spine longish and slender, its length about equal to the width of the head, very 

 slender arising abruptly from the prominence that supports it and not gradually ; 

 posterior spine resembling the median but about three-fourths its length, space 

 between the prominences of the posterior spines about equal to the length of the 



15—2 



