THE AERONAUTIC OR BALLOONING HABIT. 



269 



A comparison of this table with tlie cliart will at once show that the 

 dotted lines in the latter, which indicate the geograi^hical belt over which 

 Venatoria is distributed correspond, with remarkable general exactitude, 

 with the belt over which the North Trades blow. It is not, therefore, an 

 improbable conjecture tliat this distribution has been accomplished by 

 means of those winds and the spider's habit of aerial fliglit. It is, of 

 course, supposable that commerce, following largely tlie same belt, may 

 have originated or aided this distributioiL But certain facts in the history 

 of the spider seem to forbid this hypothesis. 



Some of the facts are: First, the early discovery of the .species as al- 

 ready widely distributed ; second, its presence at so many different insular 

 points nearly or altogether contemporaneously with first visits 

 by commercial nations; third, the existence of the species or its 

 close allies among the fauna of the tropical interiors of conti- 

 nents far distant from coast lines; fourth, the variations, chiefly 

 in color, which have been observed, and which would seem to 

 require for their development a longer period than that which has tran- 

 spired since the commencement of commercial communication with the 

 localities in which the variations have been wrought. While one may 

 not conclude with absolute certainty from these facts, they warrant the 

 theory that the Huntsman spider has become cosmopolitan by the action 

 of Nature, independent of the aid of man. 



Not Ar 

 tificial 

 Distri- 

 bution. 



Table of Distribution North of the Equator. 



Locality. 



3. 



4. 



5. 



0. 



7. 



8. 



9. 

 10. 

 11. 

 IL'. 

 13. 

 14. 

 1,5, 

 Hi. 

 17, 



Palmyra Island 

 Pelew Islands . . 

 Loo-Choo Islands 



Japan 



Nii'obar Islands . 



Tranquebar, India 1?! N.„ 



Liberia, Afi-ica 

 Senegal, Aft-ica 



Martinique, North America I 15° N. 



Wanta Cruz 



.Jamaica 



Cuba 



Florida 



Yucatan 



Mexico, .lalapa . . 

 California . . . 

 Oahu, Sandwich Is 



anils 



I was so impressed by the above chain of facts, and so confident of 

 the inference therefrom, that I ventured to predict that corre- 

 sponding results would follow a comparison of specimens collect- 

 ed from all quarters ; that is to say, they would be found to lie 

 witliin the belt of the North or South Trade Winds. The only specimens at 



A Pre- 

 diction 



