200 SUPPLEMENT TO 



Lanzwert, writing in one of the local papers'^ of " The 

 Mygales or Ground Spiders," says, "the poisonous 

 1)1 ack tarantulas, so well known to naturalists, are 

 extremely common in California, but only in places 

 upland, or lowland which are very hot and dry. 

 Their principal haunts are the San Joaquin valle}'", 

 between the Calaveras and the Tejon. A similar 

 species from the coast is not only smaller than the in- 

 terior variety, but the colours are much deeper. 

 They both make a curious habitation under the 

 ground, composed of a glutinized, web-worked purse, 

 about three inches long, and which is furnished with 

 a tightly-fitting lid which they can open or shut at 

 pleasure, and which is as cunning a piece of insect 

 architecture as is to be found in nature. These ugly 

 loathsome Californian spiders are often mentioned by 

 thoughtless scribes as carrying no more danger than 

 a common wasp, like the species of Italy, but it is 

 well known that several persons, young and old, have 

 lost their lives in this State from the bite of such 

 tarantulas as are met with in our coast and interior 

 country. Their enemy m the Tulare valley is an 

 immense shining black wasp,t fully an inch long, 

 which will pounce upon them, and alter a short 

 battle drag the tarantula along in the most valiant 

 style of heroic conquest. These interior taran- 



* The Evening Bulletin for Oct. 25, 1866. 

 + This insect was probably not a true wasp, though belonging to an allied 

 family ; it may perhaps have been a Pepsis, certain species of which genus 

 Mr. Bates informs me he has frequently seen near Santarem on the Amazon, 

 hawking over the ground where the huge trap-door spiders lived, and suddenly 

 pouncing down upon one of these creatures, often many times larger than 

 tiiemselves, when, after paralysing their victim with their sting, they would 

 deliberately saw off the legs before dragging away the bodies! 



