210 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



be safe from the attacks of birds, owing to the leaves not being 

 distinguishable from others that strew the ground. 



All species of spiders are gifted with an admirable maternal 

 instinct, and resort to various methods for the purpose of 

 securing their cocoons. The Theridion, when a seizure of the 

 precious burden is threatened, tumbles together with it to the 

 ground, and remains motionless, wliile the Thorinsa covers it 

 with its body, and when robbed of it, wanders about dis- 

 consolate. In a forest of the Sooloo Islands, Mr. Adams found 

 the ground literally overrun with a small black agile species of 

 Lycosa, many of which had a white flattened globose cocoon 

 affixed to the end of their abdomen. It was most amusing to 

 watch the care with which these jealous mothers protected the 

 cradles of their little ones, allowing themselves to fall into the 

 hands of the enemy rather than be robbed of the silken nests 

 that contained them. 



If the spiders are at war with all other insects, and con- 

 tribute to keep them within bounds by the destruction they 

 cause among their ranks, they in their turn are sorely 

 persecuted creatures. Monkeys, squirrels, lizards, tortoises, 

 frogs, and toads catch and devour them wherever they can. In 

 Java and Sumatra, we even find a family of sparrows named 

 Arachnotherce, from their living almost exclusively on spiders. 

 Armed with a prodigiously long recurved and slender beak, 

 these birds know how to pursue them and drag them forth from 

 the most obscure recesses. 



It is amongst the insects, however, that the spiders have to 

 fear their most numerous and formidable enemies. Inde- 

 pendently of those which they find in their own class, the 

 centipedes seize them beyond the possibility of escape ; and 

 several species of wasps, more savage and poisonous than 

 themselves, will rush upon spiders eight times their size and 

 weight, and benumbing them with a sting, bear them off to 

 their nests, to serve as food for their larvae. 

 ■■ Others attack the spiders in their progeny. The Pimpla 

 Arachnitor pierces with its invisible gimlet the tender skin of 

 the spider's egg, and, without tearing it, introduces its own 

 eggs into the liqiud. The pimpla's egg soon comes to 

 maturity, and the larva devours the substance of that of the 

 spider, from whence a winged insect bursts forth — a phenomenon 

 which made some naturalists, too hasty to judge from 



