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Show 292 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. [Mar. 4, The legs are very short, strong, and yellow, marked or roughly annulated with black-brown. The abdomen is mottled and marbled above with black and pale yellowish ; the sigilla form most of the dark portions ; and the rest is intersected with black veiny lines and markings, leaving, however, in some examples a tolerably distinct, large, yellow, cruciform marking extending over the whole of the upperside. The figure is taken from one of the examples in which this was most distinctly marked; the underside is blackish, spotted thickly with yellow spots and markings. Hab. Caffraria, where it was taken by Mr. J. Mansel Weale, who kindly sent it to me, with other Spiders. GASTERACANTHA ROGERSI, sp. n. (Plate XXVII. fig. 23.) Length of the transverse diameter of the adult male 1£ line ; longitudinal diameter 1 line. This is, to me, a most interesting Spider, being the only male I have ever seen in the now numerously represented genus Gasteracantha; it is also, I believe, the second ever yet described ; and it bears out a remark I formerly made with respect to the probable size and look of the males of this group. The abdomen of the present Spider is of a nearly square form, with the corners rounded off and the anterior margin somewhat hollowed ; its colour is a deep blackish brown, deeply covered with very minute pock-marks or round punctures, and a few short, somewhat spinelike, coarse, grey hairs. The spines are four in number, rudimentary, though quite visible, no trace, however, being discernible of any corresponding to the usual intermediate ones ; those present are, one at each of the rounded fore corners, and two behind in the ordinary position of the posterior ones. The sigilla are 24 in number, of tolerable size, though rather indistinct, being merely rather darker than the rest of the abdominal surface, the middle of which is somewhat more convex than the sides; 20 of the sigilla form a marginal line round the whole of the abdomen ; the rest form a central quadrangular figure. The cephalothorax is large ; the caput is elevated in a generally convex form, with but the very slightest longitudinal central indentation ; it is also very strongly constricted behind the eyes on each side; its colour is like that of the abdomen ; and it is covered with short coarse grey hairs. The legs are short, strong, tapering towards their extremities, of a deep brown colour, the posterior half of each of the tarsi and metatarsi being of a yellowish colour, the anterior portion yellow-brown. They are clothed with greyish hairs; and there are a few spines beneath the tibiae of the first and second pairs. The palpi are short; the digital joint *,ery large, of a somewhat oval form, and with the palpal organs (which are quite simple in structure, with a prominent process at their base on the outer side) form a very large club-like mass ; the radial joint is very short, and prominent on the outer side ; the cubital joint is also very short. The example above described was contained in a small collection |