( l^v ) 



whilst her hind pair of legs were applied one at a time to her 

 spinnerets, bringing away at each movement a strand of silk 

 which was then applied to the revolving beetle ; the operation 

 was carried out with great rapidity, and I could almost 

 persuade myself that I was watching the movements of some 

 ingenious silk-winding machine. When the beetle had become 

 an amorphous bundle, one long strand was attached to it, the 

 other end of the strand being held by one of the hind-legs ; 

 the spider then rapidly scaled its huge web, the silken bundle 

 dangling from one leg, and attached the strand to one of the 

 strands of the web. When my experiments came to an end 

 four of the bundles were hanging from the web, one containing 

 the beetle, the others specimens of the Pierine butterfly Terias 

 hecabe. The first specimen of Terias put into the web was 

 quickly eaten, but the other three were bitten and then wound 

 up into bundles. If an insect was distasteful to the spider the 

 strands in which it was entangled were cut, one of these 

 strands was then caught up by one of the hind-legs of the 

 spider, and after a few vigorous jerks of this leg the offensive 

 insect was thrown clear of the web. The Reduviid bug 

 Cosmolestes 2}icticeps, a conspicuous black and yellow species, 

 was thus treated ; Velinus 7iigrigenu, {mother, but larger, yellow 

 and black Reduviid, was approached with great caution, the 

 spider just touched it with her palpi and started back as if 

 alarmed, the strands of the web were cut in a wide circle 

 round the prisoner so that a large hole was made, and the bug 

 was jerked for some little distance away from the web ; both 

 these bugs were quite uninjured by their temporary imprison- 

 ment and soon managed to free themselves of the sticky silk 

 in which they had been enmeshed. The small black bee witli 

 white-tipped wings, 7'rigona apicalis, was always thrown out of 

 the web instantly, whereas the reddish species T. lacteifascia 

 was in one case seized by the spider, but after it had been 

 mouthed considerably was dropped in favour of a Muscid fly 

 which then flew of its own accord into the web ; a second 

 specimen was rejected. It should be mentioned in this 

 connection that the black and white species of bee is much 

 more common than the reddish species and is mimicked very 

 widely by Diptera, Ooleoptera, other Hymenoptera and a 



PROC. ENT. SOC. LOND., Ill, 1906. E 



