294 TROPICAL SPIDERS AND SCORPIONS 



ornamented, or rather illuminated, many of them by the vivid- 

 ness of their colours resembling the gaudy missals painted by 

 monks in the Middle Ages. Thus, among the epeiras of the 

 Philippian Isles, are found white figures on a red ground ; red, 

 yellow, and black, in alternate streaks; orange marbled with 

 brown, light green with white ocelli, yellow with light brown 

 festoons, or ash-coloured and chesnut bodies with crescents, 

 horse- shoes, Chinese characters, and grotesque hieroglyphics of 

 every description. Unfortunately, these colours, lustrous and 

 metallic as the feathers of the humming-bird, are, unlike the 

 bright colours of the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the 

 insect which they beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve 

 them. 



While most spiders obtain their food either by patiently w^ait- 

 ing in ambush or by catching it with a bound, the enormous 

 mygales, or trap-door spiders, run about with great speed in and 

 out, behind and around every object, searching for what they 

 may devour, and from their size and rapid motions exciting the 

 horror of every stranger. Their body, which sometimes attains 

 a length of three inches, w^hile their legs embrace a circle 

 of half a foot in diameter, is covered all over with brown, 

 reddish brown, or black hair, which gives them a funereal 

 appearance, while their long feelers armed with sharp hooks 

 proclaim at once what formidable antagonists they must be to 

 every insect that comes within their reach. Though some species 

 are found in Southern Europe, in Chili, or at the Cape, yet 

 they are chiefly inhabitants of the torrid zone, both in the old 

 and the new world. Some of them weave cells between the 

 leaves, in the hollows of trees or rocks, while others dig deep 

 tubular holes in the earth, which they cover over with a lid, or 

 rather with a door formed of particles of earth cemented by 

 silken fibres, and closely resembling the surrounding ground. 

 This door or valve is united by a silken hinge to the entrance at 

 its upper side, and is so balanced, that when pushed up, it shuts 

 again by its own weight ; nay, what is still more admirable, on 

 the interior side opposite to the hinge a series of little holes 

 may be perceived, into which the mygale introduces its claws 

 to keep it shut, should any enemy endeavour to open it by 

 force. The interior of the nest, which is sometimes nine inches 

 deep, is lined with a double coat of tapestry, the one nearest the 



