Trap-door spiders of the Chevert Expedition

Abstract

In 1875 the late Sir, William John (then Mr.) Macleay fitted out and conducted a scientific expedition for a few months cruise among the Islands of New Guinea and Torres Straights,for which purpose he chartered the barque Chevert. As a result of this expedition, which occupied about six months, a large amount of material was collected, and a number of papers dealing with it were published in the two first volumes of The Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. Of the material thus collected, the Araneidae were entrusted to the late Mr. H. H. Burton Bradley, and the greater part of it was worked out by him, the results being recorded in three short papers. The total number of species enumerates was forty-three, of which fourteen were described as new. Since the demise of the author referred to, Mrs. Bradley, his widow, has presented to the Trustees of the Museum a collection of Australian and Papuan Araeidae. The last-named series is especially interesting, since it proves to be of the Family Avicularidae, and is labelled: "Papua Chevert Expedition". No Terretelariae were included by Mr. Bradley in his papers, owing, doubtless, to the poverty of literature upon the subject at that time, and to which, small though it was, access was naturally difficult if not impossible. The majority of the species worked by Mr. Bradley were of the Family Argiopidae; in addition to these there were a few Theridiidae, one of the Pholcidae, one of the Zodaridae, and a coupIe of the Clubionidae.