Power of Quadrupeds to endure cold. 325 



observations upon Mygale in the Zoological Transactions." 

 Now this passage is, I grieve to say, a tissue of mistakes, 

 which perhaps might have been avoided by a reference to my 

 paper in, the Zoological Transactions, and by a more accurate 

 reading of my letter. In the first place, the bird was a Zoster ops, 

 not Gasterops ; and in the second place, the only words in my 

 printed paper on Mygale which I ever meant to retract, when 

 I hastily mentioned what I considered to be a curious fact to 

 Mr. Shuckard, were the following : " I will even go so far as 

 to add my utter disbelief in the existence of any bird-catching 

 spider." How Mr. Shuckard should imagine that I meant 

 to retract all my observations on Mygale I know not; but I 

 beg here to declare that I retract none of them, except the 

 above-mentioned disbelief. I deny that the tale of Mygale 

 catching birds is either " substantiated or confirmed" by an- 

 other spider of totally different habits having been observed to 

 catch them. Mygale is a subterranean spider, and makes no net. 

 In short, my conviction is, that Madame Merian has told a 

 willful falsehood respecting Mygale, or rather has painted a 

 falsehood ; and that her followers have too hastily placed con- 

 fidence in her idle tales. My conviction is, that no Mygale 

 can catch birds in its net ; for, as I have said in the paper 

 printed in the Zoological Transactions, it makes no geome- 

 trical net. Nay, further, I have proved that the genus Ne- 

 phila, which lives in a geometrical net, does not catch birds 

 either here or in the West Indies ; and moreover, I have ascer- 

 tained that birds are not the proper food of this New Hol- 

 land Epeira, but that the observation of my father and my- 

 self is an exception to the general rule of its insectivorous 

 habits ; an exception indeed so rare, that as far as I can learn, 

 no other person here has ever yet witnessed the fact in ques- 

 tion but ourselves. I acquit Mr. Shuckard of course of any- 

 thing like an intentional misrepresentation ; but I must ex- 

 press my regret, that when he referred to my private letter he 

 did not use the words of it, although I dare say they were 

 hastily written. I am, dear Sir, &c, 



Elizabeth Bay, neanSidney, W. S. MacLeAY. 



8th July, 1841. 



XL. — On the degree of Cold which the principal Mammalia 

 of hot countries are capable of enduring. By the Rev. Ro- 

 bert Everest, in a Note to J. E. Gray, Esq., F.R.S., &c. 



Dear Sir, 

 Having always taken an interest in the much-vexed geo- 

 logical question of " climate," I looked forward to a winter 



