M BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



" These are, however, not the only reasons which entitle the Abachxoidea to a fair 

 share of attention on the part of every observer of nature. Tlicir instinct is often 

 higher developed, th;in we find it in insects. This instinct not only shows itself 

 in the way in which they ohtain their living, but also in the art of wea\-ing, in which 

 they may be said to have been the teachers of man. Actually, almost their whole life is 

 uiithiug but a carrying out of clever arrangements, resulting from a certain amount 

 of thought and deliberation. The beauties of colour, the curiosities of form, etc., 

 which they exhibit, are equally remarkable and interesting. It is, therefore, only 

 natural that some of our oldest classic writers have expressed their admiration of the 

 works and talent, exhibited by xVrachnoids, in the most inspiring language, and many 

 a beautiful idea in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans is interwoven with their 

 mode of lil'e." 



The above remarks of Dr. F. Stoliczka are very judicious and true ; but my late 

 esteemed friend has, I think, overlooked tiie main reason fertile tlislike entertained for 

 these useful animals, and that is their i)redatory and sanguinary natures. The poet 

 says: — 



" Odimus accipitrem quia Tivit semper in amiis, 

 Sed caret insidiis hominum quia mitis hirundo est," 



and the same feeling that led the Romans to hate the hawk, leads us to hate spiders, 

 as we arc so often witnesses of its cruel ferocity to the helpless victim, jiouring out its 

 last gasp in a subdued ' buzz,' before its captor finally buries his fangs in its body. 



Family Epeiridse. 



ErEiRA (ahgtopes) mammillaeis, stoliczka. Burma. 



This species, writes Stoliczka, may be considered as the eastern representative 

 of Epeira sericea, which is found in Egypt, and almost through the whole of Northern 

 and Western Africa ; the former differs from the latter by a shorter thorax and the 

 want of numerous bands on the feet ; the abdomen is also not cmargined in front, 

 and the anterior lateral edges are not serrated, which they always appear to be in the 

 African form. 



Nephila chetsogastee, Walck. 



Adult female 20-24 Hnes. Adult male 2-25 lines. 



Either this, or a closely-allied spider, is common in Bunna, where it forms a 

 large snare with a yellow silk of considerable strength. The females are so enormously 

 larger than the males that the latter were supposed to belong to a small species, 

 which frequented the snares of the larger spider for the purpose of jncking up a stray 

 insect. From specimens, however, received from Dr. Collingwood from Labuan, and 

 from Mr. Thwaites from Ceylon, the Rev. 0. P. Cambridge was enabled to describe 

 the previously undiscovered male (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1871, p. 621), adding the 

 following interesting remarks: — "Perhaps few points of sexual dissimilarity are more 

 curious than this extreme difference in size between the males and females of this 

 genus, the male being scarcely (in the present instance) more than one-tenth of the 

 length of the female ; it seems to me fairly accounted for by an application of a branch 

 of the principle of sexual selection. It is tlie well-known habit of the female in some 

 Epciriih to endeavour to destroy or devour the male, and M. Vinson, in his work on 

 the spiders of the Mauritius, speaks of this habit in reference to a species of this 

 genus. M. Vinson gives a very graphic account of the agile way in which the 

 diminutive male esciipes from the ferocity of the female by gliding about and playing 

 hide and seek over her body and along her gigantic limbs : in such a pursuit it is 

 evident the chiinces of escape would be in favour of the smallest males, while the 

 larger ones would fall early victims ; thus gradually a diminutive race of males would 

 be selected, until at last they would dwindle to the smallest possible size compatible 

 ■with the exercise of their generative functions, in fact probidily to the size we now 

 see them, i.e. so small as to be a sort of pai'asite upon the female, and either beneath 

 her notice, or too agile and too small for her to catch without great difliculty." 



