190 MR. W. S. MACLEAY ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MYGALE. 
found her to be correct, I confess that I can attach little credit to her description of the 
metamorphosis of Ur. Leilus. 
Had Madame Merian, however, been only guilty of inaccuracy, it might have been 
pardoned ; indeed it is a pardon which the most careful of us, as the poet says, ‘‘ peti- 
musque damusque vicissim ;” but her wilful inventions are inexcusable. She it was, 
I believe, who first agitated the nerves of our unscientific great-grandmothers with the 
choice fable of bird-catching Spiders. The history of this fiction, although perhaps 
rather infringing on the unity of my Paper, is somewhat curious, as it will show how 
what may have originally been nothing more than a vague filmy misconception, can 
become gradually embodied into a pictorial lie. 
The earliest account of American Spiders is by Oviedo in 1547, who says nothing 
of their catching birds, although those which he describes as ‘‘ no muy pequefias, que 
paresce que tienen figura de rostro humano en alguna manera,” are doubtless the 
species which makes the strongest web in the West Indies, namely, Nephila clavipes. 
The next mention I meet with of American Spiders is by Pére Labat, in an account 
of ‘ Les Isles de Bermudez’, which appears to have been taken from some early English 
work on those islands!. Labat says in 1640, ‘‘ On n’y a trouvé jusques ici nuls ani- 
maux veneneux ; mésmes les arraignées n’y sont nuisibles, les quelles on y trouve fort 
belles, et elegamment begarrées de diverses couleurs, comme on escrit, et qui en 
Vesté filent de si fortes toiles que les petits oiseaux s’y empestrent.” Now all this 
is very likely to be true, and probably relates to some species of the genus Nephila of 
Dr. Leach. 
The next account of American Spiders I have is by Rochefort in 1658, in his ‘ Hi- 
stoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles’, where he clearly alludes to the passage just 
quoted. He admirably describes that large brown Spider of tropical America which is 
now called Mygale?, and ends his description with the following words: ‘Elles se 
nourissent de mouches et de semblables vermines, et on a remarqué qu’en quelques 
endroits, elles filent des toiles qui sont si fortes, que les petis oiseaus qui s’y embar- 
rassent, ont bien de la péne de s’en developper. On dit le méme des araignées, qui se 
trouvent communement dans les isles Vermudes, qui sont habitées par les Anglois ; il 
est aussi fort probable qu’elles sont d’une méme espéce.”’ The mention of birds being 
introduced here, as it was by Pére Labat, merely to show the strength of the web, this 
passage is so far correct ; but it certainly refers not to the plain brown Mygale our 
1 A work on the natural productions of the Bermudas is much wanted to illustrate the geography of Natural 
History, as also a work on the Natural History of the Azores. 
2 This name was given by Walckenaer; but Mygale was the ancient Greek name for the Shrew-mouse, and 
has in consequence been with propriety assigned by Cuvier as a generic name to the Sorex moschatus of Lin- 
nus. We entomologists ought therefore to abandon this name to so legitimate an owner, and adopt for our 
Spider the name Theraphosa, which M. Walckenaer has more lately given it. 
