212 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



liquids, the one a venom ejected by their mandibles, the other 

 of a glutinous nature, transuded by papillae at the end of their 

 abdomen. These two liquids amply supply the want of all 

 other weapons of attack or defence, and enable them to hold 

 their own against a host of enemies. With the former they 

 instantly paralyse insects much stronger and much more 

 formidable in appearance than themselves ; while with the 

 latter they spin those threads which serve them in so many 

 ways — to weave their wonderful webs, to traverse the air, to 

 mount vertically, to drop uninjured, to construct the hard 

 cocoons intended to protect their eggs against their number- 

 less enemies, or to produce the soft down which is to preserve 

 them from the cold. 



Preying on other insect tribes, which they attack with the 

 ferocity of the tiger, or await in their snares with the patient 

 artifice of the lynx, the spiders may naturally be expected to be 

 most numerous in the torrid zone, where Nature has provided 

 them with the greatest abundance and variety of food. There 

 also, where so many beetles, flies, and moths attain a size 

 unknown in temperate regions, we find the spiders growing to 

 similar gigantic dimensions, and forming webs proportioned to 

 the bulk of the victims which they are intended to ensnare. 



In some parts of Makalolo, Dr. Livingstone saw great numbers 

 of a large beautiful yellow-spotled spider, the webs of which 

 were about a yard in diameter. The lines on which these webs 

 were spun, extended from one tree to another, and were as 

 thick as coarse thread. The fibres radiated from a central 

 point, where the insect waited for its prey. The webs were 

 placed perpendicularly, and a common occurrence in walking 

 was to get the face enveloped in them, as a lady is in a veil. 



By means of their monstrous webs many giant-spiders of the 

 tropical zone are enabled to entangle not only the largest 

 butterflies and moths, but even small birds. Some Mexican 

 species extend such strong nets across the pathways, that they 

 strike off the hat of the passer-by ; in Senegal spiders spin 

 threads so strong as to be able to bear a weight of several 

 ounces, and in the forests of Java, Sir George Staunton saw 

 spider-webs of so strong a texture that it required a sharp knife 

 to cut one's way through them ; and many other similar ex- 

 amples might be mentioned. 



