538 Records of the Indian Museum. [VoL. XI, 
On one occasion Mr. Phelps saw a specimen of C. ciccatrosa 
construct its cocoon. A soft loose sheet about an inch and a half 
long and a quarter of an inch wide was prepared first , on this the 
eggs were laid, after which it was rolled up and suspended above 
the web. The eggs hatch about three weeks after they are laid, 
and the spiders develop very rapidly. 
The occurrence of a predaceous bug in the webs of C. ciccatrosa 
has already been noticed (above, pp. 512-513). The eggs of C. feae 
are parasitized by a Hymenopteron, both sexes of which are winged.! 
Thomisidae. 
Trench describes how ‘‘a lemon-coloured spider with a tri 
angular body and long yellow legs” sitting ‘‘ on one of those 
virulent mauve zinnias”’ where ‘‘ there was no effect whatever 
of any protective colouration’’ captured a bee-hawk moth 
(J.B.N.H.S. XX, p. 876). Thespider was presumably a Thomisid. 
Mrs. Drake has sent me from Serampore a number of speci- 
mens of Amyciaea sp., a mimic of the red ant Oecophylla smarag- 
dina, together with a specimen of a bug, Avmachanus monoceros, 
which mimics both, resembling the spider even more closely than it 
does the ant. Of the habits of a female A myctaea, which she kept 
in captivity, she writes: “‘It is interesting to watch her method 
of securing a red ant. When one is put under her glass it at once 
goes towards the spider, who backs away from it or lets herself 
down by a cable if there is no room to draw back, after which she 
follows up and springs on it from behind Then comes the curious 
part. She does not retain her hold but leaps down and waits. 
Next, cautiously advancing to its head, she walks round it as if to 
make quite sure it is dead, and finally, after lightly touching it, 
she begins her meal, every now and then moving on with her prey 
held up just as the ants carry their finds. Her extreme careful- 
ness looks as if she had instinctive knowledge of the power of the 
ant’s jaws, for I suppose had she herself been bitten she would not 
have survived. I had a male killed by a red ant the other day. 
[ have only seen this kind of spider near red-ant settlements, and 
of the ten seen at different times nine were eating red ants, and the 
tenth was letting itself down by a cable just over a red ants’ road. 
I believe these drop lines help to entangle a stray foraging ant, and 
while it strives to free itself the waiting spider springs upon it.’’ 
Clubionidae. 
The habits of the common Calcutta house-spiders of this family 
are described by Cunningham (‘‘ Plagues and Pleaures’’, pp. 206- 
! Bugnion and Popoff have described from Ceylon Baeus apterus, a parasite 
with wingless females obtained from the eggs of a spider determined as Argiope 
aetherea, Walck. from which those of A. catenulata, Dol., were infected in 
captivity (Rev. Suisse Zool. XVII, 1910, pp. 729-736, pl.v). The former spider 
has perhaps been incorrectly identified, for A. aetherea is a Papuan species which 
does not appear to be known from the Oriental Region (see Thorell, Ann. 
Civ. Mus. Genova, XV 11, 1881, pp. 68-71). 
