346 ARANEID^ — TRUE SPIDERS. 



"In this situation the suffering snake hung, alive, and 

 furnished a continued feast for several large Spiders, until 

 Saturday forenoon, the 16th, when some persons, by playing 

 with him, broke the web above the focus, so as to let part of 

 his body rest upon the shelf below. In this situation he 

 lingered, the Spiders taking no notice of him, until Thurs- 

 day, eight days after he was discovered, when some large 

 ants were found devouring his body."^ 



At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 Philadelphia, Mr. Lesley read the following extract from a 

 letter written by Mr. E. A. Spring, of Eagleswood, X. J. : 



"I was over on the South Amboy shore with a friend, 

 walking in a swampy wood, where a dyke was made, some 

 three feet wide, when we discovered in the middle of this 

 ditch a large black Spider making very queer motions for a 

 Spider, and, on examination, it proved that he had caught 

 a fish. 



"He was biting the fish, just on the forward side of the 

 dorsal fin, with a deadly gripe, and the poor fish was swim- 

 ming round and round slowly, or twisting its body as if in 

 pain. The head of its black enemy was sometimes almost 

 pulled under water, but never entirely, for the fish did not 

 seem to have had enough strength, but moved its fins as if 

 exhausted, and often rested. At last it swam under a float- 

 ing leaf at the shore, and appeared to be trying, by going 

 under that, to scrape off the Spider, but without effect. 

 They then got close to the bank, when suddenly the long 

 black legs of the Spider came up out of the water, where 

 they had possibly been embracing a fish (I have seen Spiders 

 seize flies with all their legs at once), reached out behind, and 

 fastened upon the irregularities of the side of the ditch. The 

 Spider then commenced tugging to get his prize up the bank. 

 My friend stayed to watch them, while I went to the nearest 

 house for a wide-mouthed bottle. During the six or eight 

 minutes that I was away, the Spider had drawn the fish en- 

 tirely out of the water, when they had both fallen in again, 

 the bank being nearly perpendicular. There had been a 

 great struggle ; and now, on my return, the fish was already 

 hoisted head first more tiian half his length out on the land. 

 The fish was very much exhausted, hardly making any move- 



1 Silliman's JournaL xxvii. 307-10. 



I 



