50 OUT OF DOOES. 



or chrysalis condition, it is little more than a trap for 

 the perfect insect. For not only are spiders' eggs to 

 be found ' under the bark,' but spiders themselves also 

 take up their residence there, and find ample subsis- 

 tence in the many insects that have found their way 

 under the bark and cannot find their way out again. 



Only two or three days ago I found, under the bark 

 of an old willow tree, the remains of a beetle (Pris- 

 tonychus terricola) which had fallen a victim to a 

 spider. Unfortunately the edge of the chisel came 

 upon it and damaged the specimen, or I should have 

 cut it out and preserved it for my museum, as I never 

 saw anything more curious. In the first place, that 

 the insect had been caught by a spider was evident 

 from the fact that it was bound to the tree by spider 

 web. In the next, it was laid on its back with the 

 limbs, jaws, wings, and wing-cases separated and dis- 

 played with as much regularity, in spread-eagle fashion, 

 as if it had been prepared by an entomologist as a 

 specimen of insect anatomy. 



Now, that any beetle should have been so treated is 

 remarkable enough, but it is still more wonderful when 

 we remember that the insect in question is one of the 

 predacious beetles and measures three-quarters of an 

 inch in length, so that it appears to be much more 

 likely to eat the spider than to allow itself to be eaten. 



Of all the insects which hibernate in the crevices 

 of the bark, by far the greater number seem to be the 

 chrysalides of various moths, which, as a rule, hide 



