Mr. Shackard on Bird-catching Spiders. 437 



its usual prey*." It was, besides, M. Latreille's opinion, Avho 

 distinctly says of My gale, " This division contains those mon- 

 strous spiders, whose legs, in their natural position, occupy 

 a circular space, the diameter of which is seven or eight 

 inches, and which sometimes seize upon small birds f;" 

 and M. Moreau de Jonnes, who made the natural history 

 of these spiders the subject of special observation in the 

 Island of Martinique, says, " It chases far and wide in search 

 of its prey, and conceals itself l)eneath leaves for the purpose 

 of surprising it, and it will climb the branches of trees to 

 devour the young of the humming-bird, and of Certhia 

 Jlaveola, lAnn.X" He further says of its mode of attacking 

 its prey, whence we may infer it was derived from personal 

 observation, " When it throws itself upon its prey, it clings 

 to the body by means of the double hooks which terminate 

 its tarsi, and it then strives to reach the occiput, that it may 

 insert its fangs between the skull and the first of the cervical 

 vertebrae. I have observed in other American insects a simi- 

 lar destructive instinct §." With regard to its power of exe- 

 cuting this, he says, " The muscvdar strength of the Mygale 

 is very great, and it is with difficulty made to let go what it 

 seizes, even when the surface scarcely presents a hold for 

 the claws with which the tarsi are armed, or for the powerful 

 fangs which assist them to kill birds and the Anolis. Its 

 obstinacy and ferocity in fighting cease only with its life." 

 It would be easy to add other authorities in support of their 

 strength and rapacity, and those already cited state that 

 Mygale spins nets or webs ; I did not say they constructed 

 geometrical webs, for very few genera of spiders form these, 

 although all the pulmonary spiders have the means of spin- 

 ning some kind of net. 



I will now cite the words of Mr. MacLeay's letter to me, 

 to show how far my account, which is to be found extracted 

 in his letter to you, differs from his own ; for, as old Chapman 

 sings, I have no wish to " blanch things further than their 

 truth." Mr. MacLeay's words, verbatim, are these : '" I wish 

 you would have the goodness to mention to such of your 

 friends as have taken up the study of Arachnidce, that I have 

 found a spider that will prey on small birds, and in fact 

 catches them in its net as well as insects. In my paper on 

 Mygale in the * Zoological Transactions' I expressed a be- 

 lief that no true bird-catching spider exists ; but I retract 

 this belief, as / have found a spider of the family Epeiridte 



* Account of Ceylon. London, 1805, p. -'310. 



t Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., second edition, vol. xxii. p. 113. 



X Ibid, p. 117. § Ibid. 



