THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



No. 72.] DECEMBER, MDCCCLXIX. [Price 6d. 



Gregarious Spiders of Paraguay *. 



Whilst I was iu the Legation I had an excellent oppor- 

 tunity of studying the habits of- the gregarious spider, which 

 is an apparent exception to the rule that the Araneae are the 

 most unsocial and bloodthirsty of animals. These spiders 

 when full grown have bodies about half an inch in length, 

 black, with the exception of a row of bright red spots on the 

 side of the abdomen, four eyes, remarkably strong mandibles, 

 and stout hairless legs nearly an inch in length. They con- 

 struct in concert immense webs, often thirty feet long and 

 eight deep, generally between two trees, and ten or twelve 

 feet from the ground. 



Across a roadway is a favourite station with them, and 

 when so placed the webs are invariably at a sufficient height 

 to allow equestrians and bullock-carts to pass beneath; but 

 I could generally touch them with my whip ; for if too high 

 they would have missed the flies and moths, their principal 

 food, which do not rise far from the ground. 



In the Patio, the grassy courtyard of the Legation, was a 

 small garden ; the beds bordered with bricks, and fenced in. 

 It was rarely entered, except by the stooping old crone 

 Basilio's mother, and the spiders had stretched six of their 

 huge nets between a large Cape jasmine and a clump of 

 orange and peach trees, the latter thickly covered with 

 a variety of mistletoe, poetically called by the natives 

 " orphan plant." The trees were about forty feet apart ; 

 the spiders had extended two strong cables, as thick as 

 pack-thread, to form the margin of each of the webs, 

 the lower being only four feet from the ground, and be- 

 tween them was a light loose net-work, imperfectly di- 

 vided into webs, each presenting about a square foot of 

 surface. Each of these sub-webs was occupied by a spider 

 * From ' Seven Eventful Years in Paraguay,' by G. F. Masterman. 



VOL. IV. 2 c 



