Members in Spiders and bisects, 4:27 



rally, and have very little doubt that when they can be kept alive and 

 healthy, a large proportion of them will be found to possess the repro- 

 ductive power. Perfect (jr^ZZi, LocustcB, awcZ ./^crycZia cast their jump- 

 ing legs with even greater alacrity than spiders, but although 1 have kept 

 them alive for months, I never knew one to be reproduced. They have 

 not the power of parting with their walking legs, another proof that it 

 is bestowed as a means of escape from present peril, and not as a mode 

 of recovery from past injury. Besides, it will universally (I think) be 

 found that a hunting spider parts with his first pair of legs (those used in 

 seizing his prey) , and a crab with his hands, with much greater exertion 

 and reluctance than with any of the others; they are less liable to seizure, 

 and better fitted for extricating themselves without compromising the 

 life of the animal. 



In Vol. IV. p. 198, of the Introduction to Entomology, by Messrs. 

 Kirby and Spence, is the following note : 



" Dr. Leach, from a communication of Sir Joseph Banks, has given 

 " a very interesting history of a spider which, having lost five of its 

 " legs, from a web-weaver had become a hunter : these legs, it after- 

 " wards reproduced, though shorter than the others. Linn. Trans, 

 " xi. 393.'* 



Upon reading the above, it occurred to me as very singular, that an 

 animal which in its perfect state was obliged to have recourse to an ela- 

 borate contrivance for obtaining its prey, should when so crippled and 

 mutilated that its locomotive powers were reduced to the lowest order, 

 assume the habits, and successfully imitate the actions, of the most alert 

 and active of its congeners. I endeavoured to procure from England (for 

 here I might as well have looked for one of the lost books of the clas- 

 sics) the volume of Transactions containing the communication, but as 

 I did not succeed, and as I concluded that Messrs. Kirby and Spence 

 might be implicitly relied upon for the faithfulness of the quotation, I 

 thought I would put the fact, although backed by such authority, to the test 

 of experiment. I accordingly removed five legs at once from several spiders, 

 but they all died from the operation. I then got rid of them by instalments, 

 but as there can be no object in giving these details I shall omit them. 



