THE society's heritage from the macleays. ■ 611 



Tbe Stuart Drawings were iulierited by George Maeleay from his brother, 

 and by him were taken to England on the termination of his visit to Australia, 

 after W. S. Macleay's death. George Maeleay eventually presented them to 

 William Maeleay in the year 1887. I was present when the bos containing 

 them was opened by Mr. Masters. After going over the contents carefully, Sir 

 William handed them over to me for the Society; and until Dr. Walkom relieved 

 me, I had had charge of them ever since. There are 161 drawings, all water- 

 colour sketclies. with the exception of live pencil or crayon drawings — Mammals, 

 13; Birds, 35; Reptiles, 6; Amphibia, 1; Fishes, 82; Crastacea, 8; Mollusca, 13; 

 Ecbinoderms, 2; Insects, 1. 



Now that I know the complete history of them, I hope to contribute a paper 

 giving a complete list of them, aS soon as I can enlist the help of an ichthyolo- 

 gist to name the fishes for me. With the Stuart drawings also came the rare 

 coloured jiortrait of Linnaeus in his Lapland dress, published by Dr. Thornton 

 in .June, 1805. reproduced from a painting by Hoffmann, now framed and hung 

 in the Hall; and a good watercolour drawing of the rare Marsupial, Chaeropus 

 ecaiulatus, by Gerard Kreti't. The entire collection was insured by George Mae- 

 leay for the sum of £200, when it was sent out. 



Another short paper, entitled "On doubts respecting the existence of Bird- 

 Catching Spiders,"' dated Elizabeth Bay, -July 8th, 1841. also appeared in the 

 eighth volume of the Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., p. 324. This was written in correction 

 of a mis-statement in the "History and Natural Arrangement of Insects" (1840), 

 by Swainson, in collaboration with W. E. Shuckard, a copy of which W. S. 

 Maeleay had recently received. Speaking of the large and powerful gi'ound- 

 spiders of the genus Mygale, Shuckard say.s — "The fact has been doubted, of these 

 catching birds in their nets, and feeding upon them; but the probability of this 

 has been substantiated and confirmed by a communication we have recently re- 

 ceived from W. S. Maeleay, Esq., who informs us, that in the vicinity of Syd- 

 ney, N.S.W., he has met with a true bird-catching spider, — having himself found 

 one of the Epeiridae actually devouring the young of a Gasterops, that had, no 

 doubt, lately flown from the nest; and which is not a solitary instance, as his 

 father, A. MacLeay. Esq.. had previously observed a similar fact. He there- 

 fore retracts his observations upon Mygale in the Zoological Transactions; for 

 here, evidently, is a spider which feeds upon the juices of a warm-blooded animal." 

 He adds in a footnote — "From a letter to me dated 7th April, 1840, brought by 

 Mr. Gould from Sydney." 



In reply to this, W. S. Maeleay pointed out in his paper, that the correct 

 name of the bird was Zosterops dorsalis; that the spider was a species of the 

 Epeiridae. and not of Mygale; and that the reason for mentioning the circum- 

 stance, when writing to Shuckard on another subject, was, that he was "anxious, 

 from the love of tmth, to retract a remark which I had made in a paper of 

 mine printed in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, some years before, 

 namely that 'I disbelieved the existence of any bird-catching spider.' " But he 

 still held to the belief that no Mygale can catch birds in its net. The observations 

 of Bates, however, without being conclu.sive, cast some doubt on this opinion 

 [Naturalist on the River Amazon, p. 83, 1879] . 



The four papers contained in the Ann. >Iag. Nat. Hist., Vols. viii. and ix. 

 (1842), from which I have quoted, are W. S. Macleay's only contributions to 

 science published in England after his removal to Australia. Two others were 



