424 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



honey; and A. arundmacea buries herself in the thick 

 panicle of a reed, and seizes the luckless visitors enticed 

 to rest upon her silvery concealment. Many of this 

 tribe at times quit their habitations, and by various 

 stratagems contrive to come within reach of their prey, 

 as by pretending to be dead, hiding themselves behind 

 any slight projection, &c. A white species I have often 

 observed squatted in the blossom of the hawthorn or 

 on the flowers of umbelliferous plants, and is thus ef- 

 fectually concealed by the similarity of colour. 



Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by 

 Walckenaer under the general name of hunters, wliich 

 search after and openly seize their prey, must be enu- 

 merated the monstrous A. avicidaria, at least two inches 

 long, which takes up its abode in the w oods of South 

 America, and has been reputed to seize and devour 

 even small birds ; but this is wholly denied by Laiigs- 

 dorf who declares that it eats only insects ='. This spe- 

 cies, as well as another tropical one, A. venatoria, the 

 European A. cernentaria, and many others, construct 

 in the ground very singular cylindrical cavities, and 

 therein carry and devour their prey. These, being 

 rather the habitations of insects than snares, I shall 

 describe in a subsequent letter. A. saccatct, the species 

 whose affection for its young I have before detailed, 

 and not a few others of the same family, common in 

 this country, in like manner seize their prey openly, 

 and when caught carry it to little inartiticial cavities 

 under stones. A.Jimbriata, L. hunts along the margins 

 of pools ; and Lycosa piratica of Walckenaer and its 

 congeners not only chase their prey in the same situ- 



* Bemerkwigen auf einer Rcise um die Welt. i. 63. 



