200 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



elastic string with which children amuse themselves, ascend 

 hind-quarters first ! The spider had no elastic string ? if 

 not, how he did he contrive to rebound like a ball ? Was the 

 silken thread retracted ? I observed no motion in his legs. 



The circumstance altogether so greatly interested me that 

 I immediately set about laying baits for flies beneath other 

 of the dome-shaped nests. Subsequently I was gratified by 

 witnessing three similar captures and three similar ascents ; 

 but I failed to detect any perceptible motion of the spider's 

 legs, which I think I must have done had the creature 

 climbed backwards up the thread; the rapidity with which 

 he ascended appeared to render such a mode of ascent 

 impossible. 



1 secured three or four of the nests, and brought them to 

 London, in the hope of establishing so interesting a spider in 

 my own garden ; 1 attached two nests to shrubs for that 

 piu'pose, but reserved one, intending to examine the species 

 more minutely, and to ascertain its name. I was, however, 

 compelled by the state of my health to leave town imme- 

 diately, and 1 forgot the poor spider imprisoned in the pill- 

 box. 



Six weeks afterwards, on my return to town, I remembered 

 the captive, and on opening the box I found a swarm of 

 young active spiders, and six dead specimens of Pezomachus 

 fasciatus : the only remains of the spider were its legs, and 

 portions of the cephalothorax and the falces. Had the 

 young spiders fed upon their parent ? I can scarcely lay this 

 charge of cannibiilism on the Pezomachus. I have repeatedly 

 bred the same Ichneumon from the nests of Agelena brunnea, 

 and these certainly did not contain the parent spider ; yet from 

 these 1 have obtained young spiders, together with Ichneu- 

 mons, from the same nest : when this happened seldom more 

 than four of Pezomachus and about half a dozen spiders. 

 I therefore must conclude that the young spiders were the 

 culprits. 



1 have submitted the nests and young of the spider to the 

 Rev. O, Pickard-Cambridge, who informs me that he has 

 little doubt of their being those of Epeira apoclisa. 



Frederick Smith. 



