ZOOLOGY. 335 



as its tether would allow, wholly unable to get its head down to the 

 floor, or to withdraw it from the noose ; while the heroic little spider, 

 exulting no doubt in the success of its exploit, which was now sure 

 beyond a perad venture, was ever and anon passing down to the loop 

 and up to the shelf, adding thereby an additional strand to the thread, 

 each of which new strands, being tightly drawn, elevated the head 

 of the snake gradually more and more. 



But the most curious and skilful part of the performance is yet to 

 be told. When it was in the act of running down the thread to the 

 loop, the reader will perceive it was possible for the snake, by turn- 

 ing his head vertically upward, to snap at and seize the spider in his 

 mouth. This had, no doubt, been repeatedly attempted in the ear- 

 lier part of the conflict ; but, instead of catching the spider, his snake- 

 ship had only caught himself in an additional trap. The spider, prob- 

 ably by watching each opportunity when the mouth of the snake had 

 been turned towards her, adroitly, with her hind legs, as when throw- 

 ing a thread around a fly, had thrown one thread after another over 

 the mouth of the snake, so that he was now perfectly muzzled, by a 

 series of threads placed over it vertically, and these were held from 

 being pushed asunder by another series of threads placed horizon- 

 tally, as my informant states he particularly observed. No muzzle or 

 wicker-work for the mouth of an animal could be woven with more 

 artistic regularity and perfection ; and the snake occasionally making 

 a desperate attempt to open his mouth, would merely put these threads 

 upon a stretch. 



The snake continued his gyrations, his gait becoming more slow, 

 however, from weakness and fatigue ; and the spider continued to 

 move down and up the cord, gradually shortening it, until at last, 

 when drawn up so far that only two or three inches of the end of his 

 tail touched the floor, the snake expired, about six days after he was 

 first discovered. 



A more heroic feat than that which this little spider performed is 

 probably nowhere upon record. 



At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila- 

 delphia, Mr. Lesley read the following extract from, a letter written 

 by Mr. E. A. Spring, of Eagleswood, N. J. : 



" I was over on the South Amboy shore with a friend, walking in a 

 swampy wood, where a dyke was made, some three feet wide, when 

 we discovered in the middle of this ditch a large black spider, making 

 very queer motions for a spider, and on examination it proved that 

 he had CAUGHT A FISH. 



" He was biting the fish, just on the forward side of the dorsal fin, 

 with a deadly gripe, and the poor fish was swimming round and round 

 slowly, or twisting its body as if in pain. The head of its black 

 enemy was sometimes almost pulled under water, but never entirely, 

 for the fish did not seem to have enough strength, but moved its fins 

 as if exhausted, and often rested. At last it swam under a floating 

 leaf at the shore, and appeared to be trying, by going under that, to 

 scrape off the spider, but without effect. They then got close to the 

 bank, when suddenly the long black legs of the spider came up out 

 of the water, where they had possibly been embracing the fish (I have 

 seen spiders seize flies with all their legs at once), reached out be- 



