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W. RAE SHERRIFFS
The Hong Kong specimens came from (1) Kowloon City and (2) Shau-ki-wan and were both captured in August 1931.
This species has a wide distribution in the East Indies viz;-whole of Malaya, Sumatra, New Guinea, Burma, Ceylon and India. Not un- naturally therefore there are several synonyms, cf. bogoriensis, submucronata and Khandarensis.
The male is much smaller than the female and was described by Thorell under the name of Epeïra caestata (1890).
Family THERIDIIDAE.
Genus ARGYRODES, Simon 1864.
8. Argyrodes fissifrons, O. Pickard-Cambridge.
First described in "The Journal of the Linnean Society" Zool. X, p. 380 (1869).
The genus Argyrodes includes a number of small so-called parasitic spiders because they live on the big webs of other larger spiders such as Nephila, Cyrtophora, Psechrus, etc. These spiders were first noticed by Dr. Vinson in the Island of Reunion and described in his "Arancides des Iles de la Reunion, Maurice et Madagascar" 1863 pp. 268-276. He first noticed their small webs placed between the strands of the large web and found them eating the young of another species.
These parasitic spiders evidently escape the notice of the bigger. spider and take food that she finds too small to bother with. Vinson called his first species Linyphia parasitica.
The species fissifrons derives its name from the male where the fore part of the head is prominent and divided horizontally by a deep fissure into 2 lobes the lower one being the stronger. Both lobes have strong, prominent hairs on them, but especially the upper one. In spirit specimen the colours are follows:-cephalothorax yellow brown: legs of same colour with darker bands and not very hairy: abdomen oblong rounded in front and produced behind over the spinnerets which are prominent. Abdomen dorsally is pale yellow brown with two longitudinal silvery lines meeting behind these lines branch at the sides and become margined with deep red brown approaching black. Both sexes have the same colourings and the abdomen may have scattered silvery spots in addition to the lines. Tip of abdomen in the female is distinctly pointed as compared with the pro- jecting bluff end in the male. She has not the deep cleft in the head so characteristic of the male. The female has a characteristic dark brown spot on the tip of the abdomen and another of the same kind and size low down behind the spinnerets.
The female measures 5 mm. long and the male about the same. The cocoon containing the eggs has a characteristic shape like a pear or globular with a blunt tip downwards: at the top end there is a long stalk which divides at its upper end into two diverging branches which attach the cocoon to the strands of the big web of the host (see figure).
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
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