The South Australian Naturalist. 55 



beauty in it. The average person would stand in admiration 

 before a beautiful web, glistening with dew, in the early morn- 

 ing ; but if the weaver of this wonderful work should come into 

 view it is given a wide berth, shunned, and looked upon as a 

 repulsive and dangerous ereature — something to do with snakes 

 or what not. To the unobservant, who go through life with no 

 time even to glanee at the wonders of Nature, there is one large 

 family, eontaining everything that bites or stings — spiders, be^^s, 

 wasps, centipedes, snakes, scorpions, etc., etc. I have even known 

 of an instance of a small tree frog being killed because it was not 

 where other frogs were and might bite. 



A hunting spider in captivity needs its daily sunbath. I 

 never fail to give my captive an hour or so facing the sunlight 

 before the heat of the day becomes too intense, and ^yhen it has 

 recovered from the .shock of being moved (for any little disturb- 

 ance of the cage upsets it and makes it shy) it comes out into a 

 position where it can enjoy the warmth. Now I net a few flies 

 for its meal. One by one I insert them through a small door in 

 the side of the cage. They buzz round in wild excitement, 

 bumping here, then there, until one bumps into the spider. The 

 apparently startled spider moves off a few paces, then another 

 fly bumps it, when off it crawls again. I have seen several 

 instances of a fly pitching right in front of the spider, within an 

 inch of its terrible jaws. Still the spider takes no notice what- 

 ever of it, and even as the fly prudently spends the time brushing 

 itself up with its forelegs, the spider, heedless of all this, moves 

 off to its shelter in the matchbox which I have also provided for 

 its comfort. This is, of course, in broad daylight, but as the sun 

 sets the spider wakes up, and when dusk is fading into darkness 

 our captive begins to bestir itself. Moving forward a couple of 

 steps, it surveys the situation. It is not hard to Avatch its move- 

 ments, as the inside of the cage is painted pure white, and its 

 movements can easily be seen in the waning light. It takes but 

 a few seconds for the spider f coming out now to feed) to see 

 what is on the menu for the evening. Cautiously it moves round, 

 and then a fly ventures to move just a few steps, and, like a 

 flash, it is seized and immediately crammed away between the 

 jaws of the hungry spider. 



Easy as it is for the spider to snatch a fly from its resting- 

 place, or even as it passes on the wing, we have seen that it 

 refrains from killing the flies except for food, even though thej' 

 annoyed it so when it wanted to rest in the sunlight. Assured 



