240 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



of this tribe at times quit their habitations, and by various stratagems con- 

 trive to come within reach of their prey, as by pretending to be dead, hiding 

 themselves behind any slight projection, &c. A white species I have often 

 observed squatted in the blossom of the hawthorn or on the flowers of um- 

 belliferous plants, and is thus effectually concealed by the similarity of 

 colour. 



Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by Walckenaer under the 

 general name of hunters, which search after and openly seize their prey, 

 must be enumerated the monstrous Mygale avicularia, at least two inches 

 long, and the expansion of whose feet has been sometimes found to extend 

 nearly a foot wide, which takes up its abode in the woods of South 

 America, and has been reputed by Madame Merian to seize and devour 

 even small birds ; but this is wholly denied by Langsdorf, who declares that 

 it eats only insects 1 ; a conclusion which is confirmed by Mr. W. S. Mac- 

 Leay from his own observations on this species, which was very common 

 in his garden in Cuba, and did him great service by devouring the Juli, 

 AchetcE, cockroaches, &c., which are so injurious there to cultivated vege- 

 tables. It issues from its hole at night only (never in the day time) to 

 attack these insects; and so far from having any bird-catching propensities, 

 Mr. MacLeay having placed a living humming-bird in the tube of a Mygale, 

 it deserted it, leaving the bird untouched. 2 It is, however, very possible 

 that other species may attack birds, as is asserted of Mi/gale Blondii by 

 Palisot de Beauvais, of M.fasciata by Percival in his Account of Ceylon, 

 and of a species common in Martinique by M. Moreau de Jonnes. 3 

 Mygale avicularia, as well as other tropical species, the European Cteniza 

 cementaria, and many others, construct in the ground very singular cylin- 

 drical cavities, and therein carry and devour their prey. These, being 

 rather the habitations of insects than snares, I shall describe in a subsequent 

 letter. Lycosa saccata, the species whose affection for its young I have 

 before detailed, and not a few others of the same family, common in this 

 country, in like manner seize their prey openly, and when caught carry it 

 to little inartificial cavities under stones. Dolomedes fimbriatus^ hunts along 

 the margins of pools ; and Lycosa piratica and its congeners not only chase 

 their prey in the same situation, but, venturing to skate upon the surface 

 of the water itself, 



" . . . . bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell 

 With feet repulsive on the dimpling well." 



The Rev. R. Sheppard has often noticed, in the fen ditches of Norfolk, 

 a very large spider, which actually forms a raft for the purpose of obtaining 

 its prey with more facility. Keeping its station upon a ball of weeds about 

 three inches in diameter, probably held together by slight silken cords, it 

 is wafted along the surface of the water upon this floating island, which it 

 quits the moment it sees a drowning insect, not, as you may conceive, 

 for the sake of applying to it the process of the .Humane Society, but of 



1 Bermerkungen aufeiner Reise urn die Welt, i. 63. 



2 Trans. ZooL Soc. Lond. i. 191. 



3 Shuckhard in Ann. of Nat. Hist. viii. 436. 



4 According to M. Walckenaer this spider (Aranea fimbriata L.), A. marginata 

 and A. paludosa De Geer ; as well as Dolomedes limbatus Hahn, and D. marqinatvi 

 of his Faune Franfaise, are mere varieties of the same species. (Ann. Soc. Ent. de 

 France, ii. 424. 



