A FISHERMAN'S SPIDER. 
By C. W. De VIS, M.A. 
A zealous correspondent, Mr. E. J. Banfield, of Dunk Island, 
has lately published in a local journal an interesting account of the 
art of fishing as practised by the natives in his vicinity. Among the 
many items of information recorded by Mr Banfield there is one 
which might be regarded as supplying evidence of aforetime inter- 
course between the natives of our North-east coast and those of New 
Guinea. That the fishermen of Papua use the web of a spider as a 
bait and tangle, by means of a kite, in their capture of fish, has 
already been made known to us,* and we are now informed that 
aboriginals on the fringe of our mainland employ for a like purpose 
the same substance, though not in the same manner. One's 
interest in this occurrence of an unusual custom prompted a request 
that the observer would help to make known also the spinner 
of the web to which he referred. To this request he kindly 
responded by sending an example of the spider for inspection. As 
was expected it proved to be a Nephila. It is, moreover, one that 
may at least take rank as an additional subspecies of N. metadata. 
NEPHILA MACULATA PISCATORUM nov. subsp. 
The lineation of the sides of the abdomen, recorded by Mr. E. 
Simon in his description of the subspecies N. rnaculata jalorensis,f 
is here brought into great prominence by incrassation, which 
renders the sides obliquely corrugated and raises their margins 
above and below, considerably above the level of the adjacent 
surfaces ; these consequently appearing to be depressed within ; 
the corrugation extending fore and aft on the upper surface 
completely encloses it, on the lower it surrounds the sides and 
posterior end only. 
* Annals Queensland Museum No. 5, p. 4, 1900. 
+ Proc. Zool. Soc, 1901, p. 58. 
