334 SOME NEW ARANEID^ OF N.S.W., 



have found ca delicately-tinted green Epeira on the similarly 

 coloured green leaf of a lily, and a friend recently told me he had 

 found a very brightly coloured yellow spider (which he did not 

 bring me) on a yellow Cosmos flower." 



ISTot only do spiders, in addition to colouration, possess the faculty 

 of mimicry as a protection against biixls, reptiles, itc, but their 

 cocoons in some instances are also protected. The cocoon of 

 Epe'ira herioiip., Koch, is made of withered leaves closely bound 

 together, and suspended to one of the supporting lines or guys 

 above the orbitular portions of the mesh, and looks more like a dis- 

 coloured mass of rubbish rather than a nest containing eggs. 

 Writing "On the History and Habits of the Epeira Awrelia 

 Spider,"* Mr. Frederick Pollock remarks : — '' The favourite haunt 

 of E. aurelia is the prickly pear — a plant from which the cocoon 

 can scarcely be distinguished in colour, and so close is the 

 resemblance that the first time I saw one of these cocoons, I 

 could hardly believe that it was not a withered piece of the 

 cactus." Anton Stecker also records a case of protective resem- 

 blance in the nest of an Epeira at Sokna (Tripoli),! covered with 

 debris and the elytra of beetles, &c., and Odewahn | obtained at 

 Gawler (South Australia) some globular spiders' cocoons, found 

 on branches of trees, and i-esembling the fruit of Lei)tos2)ermum, 

 the spiders of which were hanging near them, and resembled the 

 excrement of some bird in appearance, a wonderful form of 

 mimicry to which I shall presently have occasion to refer. 



In Cyrtarachne caliginosa, recently descrilied and figured by 

 me,!^ we have, indeed, an extraordinary form. It is well known 

 that h^iry caterpillars are exceedingly distasteful to birds; con- 

 uequently it is only reasonable to assume that the long hairs upon 



• Annals and Magazine of Nat. Hist. 3rd series, Vol. xv., p. 459; 

 June 1, 1865. 



+ Mittheilungun der africanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland, ii. pp. 

 78-80. 



X Proc. Ent. .See. 1864, p. 57. 



§ P.L.S.N.S.W. Vol. ix. (2nd series) pp. 154-157; pi. x. figs. 2, 2a, 2h. 



