SOME ARACHNIDS AT HANOVER, CAPE COLONY. 151 



inches long (exclusive of legs) when full grown, and of a most brilliant 

 yellow, with a heavy black band down the back of the abdomen, while 

 the legs are covered with long yellow hair, which, in the male, be- 

 comes a distinct mane and is iridescent. As it lies on the sand on a 

 hot day, sparkling in the sunshine, it is a most exquisite creature. 

 Touch it, and away it darts; catch it and take care it doesn't catch 

 you! The male of this Solpuga may be distinguished from the female 

 by two little curved horns, like wires, more than a quarter of an inch 

 long, one on top of each pair of nippers near the points. If you watch 

 a Solpuga closely, you may see its sides palpitating rapidly, even 

 violently if you hold it in your hand. Like all active, high-strung, 

 quick-breathing creatures, the Solifugse perish almost instantaneously 

 when immersed in spirits, while large scorpions and large Harpactirae 

 will live for two or three hours. Another Solpuga has a yellow 

 cephalothorax and a red abdomen, another is wholly yellow with spikes 

 on its legs.* Very little is known with regard to their methods of 

 reproduction and the nurture of their young. They are great bur- 

 rowers, but do not make regular holes apparently, and they lie 

 dormant underground during the winter. They are a feature of the 

 thirsty veld and the blazing sun. 



Coming now to spiders, and dealing first with the four-lunged 

 group, one may remark that the lung plates are very obvious as four 

 yellowish or pinkish discs on the fore part of the lower side of the 

 abdomen (as are the two discs in the two-lunged genera). The 

 largest here are the Theraphosidas, known in South Africa by the 

 Dutch name, Baviaan Spinnekoppen (baboon spiders). I have been 

 able to discover only one kind here, a new Harpactira. The adults, 

 with their legs extended, are roughly as large as a man's hand. Their 

 huge bodies and long powerful legs are covered closely with long hair, 

 which is almost identical in color with the hairy coat of a baboon 

 hence, perhaps, the appropriate name; putting aside the fact that 

 baboons, who turn stones over in search of scorpions and insects of 

 various kinds, are said to be very partial to them. They are poisonous 

 and have very large and powerful fangs directed backwards and sub- 

 parallel. When these fangs, which ordinarily lie tucked backwards 

 under the cephalothorax, are shot forward and opened apart, the huge 

 hairy spider has a dreadful appearance. The pads on the legs (ex- 

 tending along the lower side of the two end joints and over the tips) 

 are soft and clingy, like the skin of a monkey's hand, and iridescent. 

 Baviaan Spinnekoppen are nocturnal, living by day under stones in 



* These two species, and possibly one or two others, are probably new, 

 but this cannot be determined for certain until the males are caught, and, aa 

 yet, I have caught only the females. 



