MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



207 



The spiders themselves are rarely seen on the outside of the nest after its 

 completion, and one has to tear it open to find them within. The spiders are 

 greyish and the adults are of small size; the total length of the male being 

 6 mm. and of the female even only 10 mm. 



Yet large insects succumb to them, and I have recently found, on a group of 

 webs, several specimens of the Bombay locust— Acriilium succinctum (a swarm 

 of these locusts visited this place about a month back), some large and tough 

 rose and other chafer? and aculeate hymeuoptera (too far damaged for identi- 

 fication) of considerable size. 



Now these insects are far larger (the locusts are over two inches long) and 

 infinitely more powerful than the spiders, and the latter are by no means 

 formidably armed. 



I believe, however, that the spiders do not attack their victims while still 

 alive. I have never actually been able to observe cne feed- 

 ing, but they certainly do not, like solitary web-dwellers, 

 rush forward as soon as an insect is fast in the snare. I 

 have seen several insects struggling on the web and yet 

 not a spider appeared. Again 1 found a rose beetle so en- 

 tangled that it could not move, and indeed I imagined it 

 was dead until I had freed it of the sticky threads, and 

 yet it was absolutely untouched by the spiders. It may 

 therefore be inferred that they either allow the trapped 

 insect to die, or, at least, wait till it is quite helpless from starvation, before 

 they start operations. This would be specially necessary with stinging hymen- 

 optera, as the sting could easily pierce through the swathing thread, and the 

 spider is not armoured in any way. 



The colonies are built usually on shrubs not more than 8 feet above the 

 ground level and at the ends of branches in exposed positions. One I have 

 particularly observed in the compound of the bungalow I occupy here, is on a 

 bush of Lager strmmia indica just now out in flower and attracting many 

 insects, fo that no doubt the colony is enjoying high living. 



Stegodyphus saradnorum has a wide range, as I have found it common in 

 Ganjam as well as in the lower portion of Coimbatore in the Madras 

 Presidency. 



A description of this species will be found on pages 209-210 of the Volume 

 on Arachnida (R. I. Pocock) in the Fauna of British India Series. 



Dkhra Dun, C. E. C. FISCHER. 



\lth July 1907. 



" ;* ;' 



No. XXIV.— NATURAL LAYERING OF DESMOD1UM 



TILICEF0L:UM, G. Don. 



Recently, when on tour in the North-West Himalayas, one of the students 



of the Dehra Forest College (B. M. Warde) drew my attention to a shrub of 



Desmodtum tilicefolium about six feet in height, one branch of which was 



