69 



The webs of the Epeu'idfe differ from these last odIj in 

 the structure of the adhesive thread, which has when spun 

 a viscid coating which soon collects in drops along the 

 thread. These webs are not always complete circles, 

 many species making a number of looped threads ex- 

 tending only part way round, and some, as Nepliila plu- 

 7mjjes, always leaving a segment of the web Avithout 

 adhesive threads. 



Vice President F. W. Putnam called the attention 

 of the Institute to a very interesting relic which had re- 

 cently been received by the Peabody Museum of Archas- 

 ology and Ethnology at Cambridge, and of which he 

 exhibited a plaster cast. This important piece of Mexi- 

 can sculpture was found about twenty years ago, in a 

 cave near Acapulco, by Dr. Sharp, and given by him to 

 Commodore Parker, now in command at the Charlestown 

 Navy Yard. Within a few weeks Commodore Parker 

 had presented it to the Peabody Museum. It is carved 

 from a hard rock, dolerite, and has had two coats of 

 paint, the internal of which is red and the external black, 

 so that the natural surface of the stone is seen only on 

 such parts as have been exposed and greatly rubbed, as is 

 the case with the posterior surface. 



The image now represents the head and neck of a man 

 broken off just above the shoulders. That it was broken 

 is shown by the uneven fracture and slight chippings from 

 some of the projecting points, as if this interesting work 

 of probably ancient Mexican art had been roughly han- 

 dled either at the time of finding, of which, unfortunately, 

 a record cannot be secured, or at an earlier period. 



The great interest in the relic will be seen, at once, to 

 centre in the peculiar manner in which this human head 

 is dressed with the skin of the puma, or "American lion," 

 and the remarkable resemblance which it has to the head 



