64 



A NATUEALIST8 WANDEBIXGS 



* 



a butterfly. I approached with gentle steps but ready net to 

 see if possible how the present species was engaged. It per-^ 

 mitted me to get quite close and even to seize it between my 



fingers ; to my surprise, however, part of the body remained be- 

 hind, and in adhering as I thought to the excreta, it recalled to 

 my mind an observation of Mr. Wallace's on certain Coleoptera 

 falling a prey to their inexperience by boring in the bark of 



trees in whose exuding gum they became unwittingly entombed. 

 I looked closely at, and finally touched with the tip of my 



A BIRD S EXCRETA-MIMICKING SPIDE3. 



my 



finger, the excreta to find if it were glutinous. Tc 

 astonishment I found that my eyes had been most perfectly 

 deceived, and that the excreta was a most artfully coloured 

 spider lying on its back, with its feet crossed over and closely 

 adpressed to its body. 



The appearance of the excreta rather recently left on a leaf 

 by a bird or a lizard is well known. Its central and denser 

 portion is of a pure white chalk-like colour, streaked here and 

 there with black, and surrounded by a thin border of the dried- 

 up more fluid part, which, as the leaf is rarely horizontal^ often 

 runs for a little way towards the margin. The spider, which 

 belongs to a family, the Thomisidm^ possessing rather tubercu- 



