104 SPIDERS [CH. 



With spiders, as with insects, moulting is a very 

 serious matter, involving much more than the mere 

 casting off of an external coat. If all does not go 

 well limbs may easily be lost in the operation, nor is 

 it rare to meet with instances in which the animal has 

 perished in its unsuccessful attempt to discard the 

 old integument. 



Mr Adams' second specimen was kept alive for 

 three years and ten months. It moulted only once 

 each year in June or July and it died in the act 

 of casting its skin. In the case of these spiders, 

 also, it was noted that insects supplied to them as 

 food displayed no fear whatever. There were always 

 a few cockroaches in the same box, and they were 

 often observed actually with the spider in its nest, 

 but no notice was taken of them unless their host 

 chanced to be hungry. A photograph of this spider 

 is given in the Frontispiece. 



It is an interesting fact that many of the Avi- 

 culariidae of Southern Asia and Australia possess a 

 sound-producing apparatus which is entirely lacking 

 in African and American forms, but this is a subject 

 which deserves a chapter to itself. 



