220 Dr. W. Rae Sherriffs on XXIV. — A Contribution to the Study of Smth Indian Arachwlogy. By W. Rae Sherriffs, M.A., D.Sc, formerly Professor of Zoology, Madras Christian College, Madras. [Plates IT.-VI.] In the preface to his volume on the ' Araehnida ' (Fauna of British India Series) Mr. R. I. Pocock says "all that has been attempted is to afford means of identifying the larger, commoner, better known and more widely distributed forms ... It is to be hoped that the present work, by facilitating the study of Indian spiders, will increase the number of observers and collectors, so that at some future time a far more complete account of these animals may become practicable." These sentences were penned in 1900 and during the intervening years no contributions have been made to this subject, excepting quite recent papers by Dr. Gravely of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Thorell in his 'Catalogue of the Spiders of Burma s (written in Latin) and Pocoek in his 'Araehnida' are purely descriptive, their aim being solely to enable their spiders to be identified. Simon in his vast work ' Histoire naturelle des Araignees' not only is systematic in his treatment, but also gives an account of the habits and customs of the different genera. As he deals with the spiders of the whole world, this part of the subject-matter is neces-sarily brief. In the present paper the emphasis is not on the systematic side, for the writer has attempted, for the first time in South India, to enumerate the spiders commonly found throughout the hills and plains, regardless of size or any other consider-ation, definitely noting localities ; also to describe their general life, habits and associations, the nature of the webs, their stabilimenta, and the cocoons with contained eggs. With regard to the localities a few words of explanation are necessary. The spiders were colleeted during 1914-18 from three distinct regions — (1) the plains of South India represented by Madias city and the country around for 12 miles to the north (Ennur) and o5 miles to the south (Chingleput), (2) the hills, principally the Nilgiris, (3) central upcountry Ceylon. These three distinct regions differ widely in their rainfall, and therefore in the relative abundance of spiders throughout the year. Around Madras
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