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I have but ouce seen a Mygale alive ; the specimen was sent to 

 the late Mr. John Doubleday by post, and when it reached London 

 \vas evidently much shaken by its transit frora Liverpool. The day 

 iifter its arrival he gavę it cockroaches. They were put into the small 

 box along with the Mygale. It apparently at first did not see them, 

 but on these " Cursorial Orthoptera" runuing about Mygale' s legs, 

 the great spider drew itself up, and darted its chehcera into one of 

 them, tearing its intestines with its fearfully armed hook. The Blatta 

 was soon devoured, and the spider, evidently an invaUd after its 

 lough journey, died next day. 



Mr. H. W. Bates, who has for the lašt eight years so successfully 

 ooUected Annulosa, and observed tlieir habits at various points on the 

 Amazou, in a letter to me, dated " Santarem, 30 April, 1855," 

 written on the eve of starting for " the wonderful country of the 

 Upper Amazons," remarks : — " With regard to spiders, I have ob- 

 served many curious points ia their habits, but I cannot communi- 

 cate them until I can send specimens, with numbers attached, to 

 \vhich the notes can be referred. There is one observation I made, 

 howe\ er, which I am sure will be of the highest interest to science. 

 It is with respect to the habit of the Mygales to prey on birds. Now 

 I have deteeted them in the fact as far back as 1849, but thought 

 little of it at the time, as I had the idea that it was a well-known 

 and undisputed fact in science. Lately, however, I read an account 

 (I think of Langsdorffs expedition in the iuterior of Brazil), where 

 the fact is considered to ręst on no fouudation, and to be one more 

 of the fables originated by Madame Merian. Now I will relate to 

 you what I saw. lu the month of June 1849, in the neighbourhood 

 of Cameta, I was attracted by a curious movement of the large grey- 

 brown Mygale on the trunk of a vast tree. It was close beneath a 

 deep crevice or chink in the tree, across which this species weaves a 

 dense web, open for its exit and entrance at one end. In the present 

 instance, the lovver part of the web was broken, and two pretty small 

 finches were entangled in its folds ; the finch was about the size of 

 the common Siskiu of Europe, and I judged the tvvo to be malė and 

 female : one of them was quite dead but secured in the broken web, 

 the other was under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was 

 covered in parts with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the mon- 

 ster. I was ou my return from a day's excursion by land, at the time, 

 with my boxes iuU of valuable and delicate insects, and six miles 

 from my house, and therefore could not have brought the specimens 

 home, even had I wished, which I did not, as the species was a very 

 common species, easily to be procured nearer home. 



" If the Mygales did not prey upon Vertebrated animals I do not 

 see how they could fiud sufEcient subsistence. On the extensive sandy 

 campos of Santarem, so bare in vegetatiou, there are hundreds of the 

 broad slanting burrows of the large stout species (that fine one, dark 

 brown, with paler brown lines down the legs). The campos, I know, 

 from close research, to be almost destitute of insects, but at the šame 

 time they swarm with small lizards, and some curious ground-finches 

 of the Emheriza group (one of which has a song wonderfully resem- 



