192 MR. W. S. MACLEAY ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MYGALE. 
Under stones these animals may always be detected, but never during the day in the 
open air!. At night, indeed, they sally forth to enjoy an interesting promenade, more 
particularly before rain, when the electrical state of the atmosphere seems to put Scor- 
pions and all other Arachnida in motion. At such periods Mygale, or, as the Spaniards 
term it, the Arava peluda, crawls slowly into the houses,—an unwelcome guest ,—although 
from its inactivity, and its unguiform antenne being bent downwards, it is easily and 
without danger crushed. It is said, however, that the bite of the Arata peluda is worse 
than the sting of the Alacran or Scorpion: it may be so; but I can scarcely conceive 
how any one should have known the fact, unless he had been curious enough to re- 
solve on being bitten. In that case, indeed, I can well imagine that the strong sharp 
ungues” which terminate the antenne may have made a severe wound, even had the 
animal not the power, which it possesses, of inserting venom whenever it bites. Never- 
theless, as to these immense Spiders,—the expansion of whose feet has been sometimes 
found to extend nearly a foot wide,—killing Humming-birds, it is not merely, I repeat, 
that they possess no net or other means for catching them, but they will not even de- 
your them when caught ; for I once placed a live Humming-bird? and a small Anolis in 
the tube of a Mygale, and it deserted it, leaving my vertebrated animals untouched. 
So much for the fidelity of that pencil whose monstrous and misshapen figures have 
been reconciled often to form and grace, merely by our due distance from Surinam. 
As the above is one instance among a thousand, I repeat that until some Surinam na- 
turalist shall prove where our good lady is true, I shall always most ungallantly believe 
her to be the contrary. 
One word, however, as to bird-catching Spiders. The largest Spiders that make a 
geometrical net belong to the genus Nephila; and the largest Nephila that I have seen 
in the West Indies is the elegant Neph. clavipes, or Epeira clavipes of Latreille. This 
species is common in gardens, suspended to trees in the centre of a web, the mathe- 
' Surely M. Langsdorff, notwithstanding his assertion of having accurately studied the economy of these 
animals, is quite wrong in describing them to leave their holes, “‘nur bei sehr warm scheinender sonne, und 
nicht weiter als héchstens auf einen schritt entfernung.” So far from enjoying a warm sunny day, the Mygale 
is truly necturnal, and wanders by night great distances. It is no doubt the aspect of this insect,—so little 
lovely,—which has fated it always to be incorrectly observed. When M. Langsdorff asked the people of Brazil 
if the Caranguexeira—tor such it seems is the terrific name of our poor Spider in that country—fed on Hum- 
ming-birds, they answered him with bursts of laughter, that it only gratified its maw with large Flies, Ants, 
Bees, Wasps, Beetles, &c., an answer which our traveller afterwards, as he says, found the truth of by personal 
experience. This ought, no doubt, to be quite conclusive evidence ; but nevertheless I must beg leave still to 
doubt that any Mygale can catch winged Hymenoptera. M. Langsdorff, I have no doubt, ascertained that they 
devoured Ants and Beetles, and the rest, I suspect, must merely be attributed to a loose mode of expressing 
himself. 
2 So far back as the time of Rochefort these wngues were mounted in gold and used as tooth-picks, being sup- 
posed, as he says, to possess a peculiar virtue in preventing all diseases of the teeth. 
2 A young Trochilus pectoralis, Lath., and a young Anolius rhodolamus, Bell. 
