OVIPOSITION OF A CAPTIVE AMERICAN FALSE SPIDER 163 



sumed an entire lizard except the jaws and parts of the skin. 

 Other instances in which solpugids are supposed to have eaten 

 their prey are given by Rev. J.J. Wood, in his ' Natural History 

 Illustrated,' and quoted by Murray. Still it is believed that 

 solpugids take only liquid food, which they suck from the bodies 

 of their victims." 



Since the jar in which my solpugid was confined is only five 

 inches in diameter, frequently the arachnid captured her food 

 near enough to the side of the jar for me to focus my hand lens 

 upon her jaws. Evening after evening, magnifying glass in 

 hand, I have watched those jaws while the false-spider devoured 

 insect after insect. And then, when the arachnid had cast 

 the remains aside, I have fished them out with a crooked wire. 

 Our Eremobates formicaria is not a mere imbiber of juices; she 

 consumes all of her victims except the hard chitin. 

 * Her first pair of large appendages are powerful chelae, each 

 blade of which is armed with stout teeth (Fig. 3). These cheli- 

 cerae are so articulated to the head that, as the blades move 

 dorso-ventrally like those of scissors, the chelicerae move for- 

 ward and back with a saw-like movement. While the right 

 chelicera is moving forward the left is moving backward. When 

 a small insect is captured by the chelicerae, this scissors-saw- 

 like movement of the jaws soon reduces it to a shapeless mass 

 of chitin, while the contents of its body are being consumed. 

 When the Eremobates formicaria encounters a large insect, it 

 usually grabs it, on the ventral side, just back of the head. 

 Once the jaws have secured a hold, the creature is usually 

 doomed. The insect may squirm and struggle and jump, but 

 the false-spider retains its hold. I have seen a locust jump 

 back and forth across the jar several times without getting rid 

 of its. antagonist. In a comparatively short time the scissors- 

 saw-like movements of the jaws make a breech in the integu- 

 ment of the victim. If the thorax is large enough, the jaws 

 are inserted and their scissors-saw-like movements enable the 

 arachnid to soon pulpify and devour much of the contents of 

 the body. After the removal of all of the contents that can 

 be secured in this manner, the lower blade of each jaw is placed 

 on the outside and the upper blade on the inside of the body 

 of the victim, and the scissors-saw-like movements continue. 

 At the same time the carcass is moved from side to side and 



