274 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



long) the insect's toes give it warning of prey being at hand, when it 

 rushes out and seldom fails to secure its victim. 



" The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine ! 

 Feels at each thread, and lives along the line." 



M. Homberg tells us that he has seen a vigorous wasp carried off and 

 destroyed by one of these species. 



The spiders to which I have hitherto adverted seize their prey by means 

 of webs or nets; but a very large number, though, like the former, they 

 spin silken cocoons for containing their eggs, and often line their cells and 

 places of retreat with silk, never employ the same material in constructing 

 similar snares, of which they make no use. 



These may be separated into two grand divisions : the first comprising 

 those which conceal themselves and lie in ambuscade for their prey, and 

 sometimes run after it a short distance ; the second, those which are con- 

 stantly roaming about in every direction in search of it, and seize it by 

 open violence. The former Walckenaer, in his admirable work on spiders, 

 has designated by the name of Vagrants, the latter by that of Hunters ; 

 terming those already mentioned which spin webs and nets, Sedentaries : 

 if to these you add the Swimmers, or those species which catch their prey 

 in the water, you will have an idea of the general manners of the whole 

 race of spiders.^ 



The artificers of that tribe which Walckenaer has named vagrants are 

 various and singular. Several species conceal themselves in a little cell 

 formed of the rolled up leaf of a plant, and thence dart upon any insect 

 which chances to pass ; while others select for their place of ambush a 

 hole in a wall, or lurk behind a stone, or in the bark of a tree. Aranea 

 calycina L. more ingeniously places herself at the bottom of the calyx of 

 a dead flower, and pounces upon the unwary flies that come in search of 

 honey ; and A. arundinacea buries herself in the thick panicle of a reed, 

 and seizes the luckless visiters enticed to rest upon her silvery concealment. 

 Many of this tribe at limes quit their habitations, and by various stratagem? 

 contrive to come within reach of their prey, as by pretending to be dead, 

 hiding themselves behind any slight projection, &c. A white species 1 

 have often observed squatted in the blossom of the hawthorn or on the 

 flowers of umbeliferous plants, and is thus effectually concealed by the 

 similarity of color. 



Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by Walckenaer under the 

 general name of hunters, which search after and openly seize their prey, 

 must be enumerated the monstrous Mygale avicularia, at least two inches 

 long, and the expansion of whose feet has been sometimes found to extend 

 nearly a foot wide, which takes up its abode in the woods of South 

 America, and has been reputed by Madame Merian to seize and devour 

 even small birds ; but this is wholly denied by Langsdorf, who declares 

 that it eats only insects^ ; a conclusion which is confirmed by Mr. W. S. 

 MacLeay from his own observations on this species, which was very com- 

 mon in his garden in Cuba, and did him great service by devouring the 



^ Some slight alterations in M. Walckenaer's original divisions, but which need not be 

 here particularized, have been made in his later works on spiders. 

 ^ Bermerkungen auj einer Eeise um die Welt. i. 63. 



