1921] Barhour — Spiders Feeding on Small Cyprinodonts 131 



SPIDERS FEEDING ON SMALL CYPRINODONTS. 



By T. Barbour, 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. 



This spring was unusually dry in Southern Florida, especially 

 during March and early April. Ponds were low and even the 

 large lakes were considerably reduced in area. This condition 

 may have influenced the habit which I observed and which Mr. 

 Banks and Mr. Emerton have kindly suggested my recording. 



While fishing for bass in the upper St. John River, above Lake 

 Washington, where the river is a narrow, sluggish stream, I have 

 always camped to cook my midday meal on a willow tussock in a 

 shallow slough, which ofl^ers about the only chance to build a fire 

 in this very boggy country. This year the water in the little 

 bayou was low and the water hyacinths and lettuce plants usually 

 afloat were resting with their roots on the mud in the shallows. 

 The vegetation swarmed with Dolomedes, l)ut then these spiders 

 always seem to have a predilection for creeping about on the floating 

 lettuce, especially. The water, both beneath the plants and in the 

 little open spaces between them, teemed with several species of 

 cyprinodont fishes, of which a Clambusia, beyond doubt affuiis, 

 was the most abundant. 



After eating, I rested quietly awhile in the stern of my boat, 

 which was partly hauled up on the tussock, hence quite motionless. 

 A tiny flash of silver caught my eye, and I looked again, to see 

 a spider carrying a small dead fish, perhaps an inch long, across 

 a wide leaf to the dark interior of a large lettuce cluster. I 

 thought that probably the spider had found a dead fish by chance, 

 and I relit my pipe, when about six feet away in another direc- 

 tion the episode was repeated. This time the little fish was still 

 struggling feebly in the spider's chelieerae. Later I saw a third 

 fish being carried off which was dead and quite dry. At the time 

 I presumed that the habit of catching fish was probably well 

 known and I thought no more about the happening until I spoka 

 to my friends and searched the literature with small results. 



McCook, in his "American Spiders and their Spinning Work,'' 

 (Vol. 1, 1889, p. 236, fig. 219), pictures an enormous spider riding 

 on the back of a moribund and gigantic carp, if the relation of 



