November i6, 1893] 



NATURE 



61 



placed it upon the snare. The Agalena immediately 

 darted forth ; but upon touching the insect with her fore- 

 legs, quickly drew back as if to keep out of harm's way. 

 Meanwhile, the bee, by making vigorous efforts to escape, 

 had nearly succeeded in breaking away the web with which 

 its legs were entangled — a fact of which the spider 

 seemed well aware. For, rushing at it once more, she 

 rapidly, and, by some dexterous movement that I could 

 not follow, attached a thread either to the insect or to a 

 portion of the web hard by, and then started to run 

 rapidly round and round her prey, letting out the thread 

 as she went, and literally winding the insect up. Having 

 by this safe and satisfactory process speedily put a stop 

 to all immediate likelihood of escape, and having also 

 achieved the desired end of hampering the bee's move- 

 ments, she again rushed two or three times at it, although 

 still evidently bearing in mind the desirability of not 

 coming to close quarters, and ultimately succeeded in 

 inflicting a bite on one of its legs. From that moment 

 all anxiety on her part respecting the probability of the 

 escape of her prey seemed to disappear, for instead of 

 keeping madly on the move, as she had done up to the 

 time of dealing the wound, she quietly retreated to her 

 funnel and sat down to wait. Nor was an explanation 

 of this behaviour long in presenting itself. For the bee's 

 struggles became more and more feeble, and in about 

 one minute ceased altogether. There was very little 

 doubt in my mind that this was attributable to poisoning : 

 but to make sure that its quiescence was not due to ex- 

 haustion from its efforts, I took it from the web for 

 examination, and found that it was to all intents and pur- 

 poses dead, the only perceptible movement that it made 

 being a slight twitching of the extremities of the 

 antennae. Whilst I was examining it I noticed the 

 Agalena issue from her funnel and return to the spot 

 where she had left her victim.. 



Subsequently to discover to what extent the spider's 

 behaviour on this occasion was to be explained by 

 her knowledge of the formidable nature of the 

 bee, I placed a blue-bottle fly in the web of another 

 specimen. The spider immediately rushed out, touched 

 the insect with her fore-feet, and falling upon it with- 

 out further delay, dragged it to the entrance of her tube, 

 and proceeded to devour it. 



As a further experiment I introduced an example of the 

 drone-fly {Erisialis) into the web of a third example of this 

 species ; but, curiously enough, instead of instantly slaugh- 

 tering the harmless insect, as the second one had the blue- 

 bottle fly, this spider treated it with the same caution 

 that the first had shown towards the bee. She did not, 

 however, wind it up, but, keeping at a respectful distance, 

 and watching for an opportunity, she ultimately bit it in 

 the foot and killed it by this means in a few moments. 



From these observations I think three conclusions 

 may be legitimately drawn : — (i) That the first spider 

 avoided contact with the bee for fear of being stung ; 

 '2) that the other mistook the Eristalis for a bee, as 

 ninety-nine uninitiated human beings out of a hundred 

 would also do ; and (3) that the spider's bite rapidly 

 compassed the death of the insects owing to the injection 

 of poison. I wish to draw special attention to this last 

 conclusion, not but that the others are more interest- 

 ing, because Dr. McCook, when recently investigating 

 the question of spider-venom, was inclined to reject the 

 conclusion that the mandibular fluid of these Arthropods 

 possesses any poisonous property. 



His suggestion that the death of an insect results from 

 mutilation caused by the bite clearly will not apply in 

 the present instances where only a leg was bitten. For 

 myself, I do not doubt that the fluid in question is 

 poisonous, although probably in a varying degree to the 

 insects upon which the spiders prey, and that the use of the 

 poison is— as it also is, I think, in the case of scorpions — 

 to put a speedy end to struggles, so as firstly to remove 



NO. 1255. VOL. 49] 



all chance of escape on the part of the prey, and secondly 

 to lessen the probability of injury tbeing done to the 

 Arachnoid by a captive which might also be armed with 

 jaws or stings. 



When watching a couple of Agalenas pairing I was 

 much struck by the extreme f^pertinacity with which the 

 operation was carried on. As above stated, specimens 

 of this species are usually exceedingly shy and very 

 difficult to approach, but at this period both male and 

 female seemed utterly oblivious to all their surroundings. 

 They even permitted me to tear away portions of the 

 web, and even to touch them without flinching. A cloud 

 of tobacco smoke made them separate for a short time, 

 but no sooner had it dispersed than they resumed 

 operations as before. I repeatedly pulled the male from 

 the female with my forceps ; whereupon she would in 

 alarm retreat to the further extremity of her tube, but he, 

 seemingly, very little disconcerted by the compulsory in- 

 terruption, would, when placed again in the web, quickly 

 followher,andpresently both would appear again at theen- 

 trance of the tube, she lying perfectly passive and he hoist- 

 ing her along with the patellae of a pair of her legs grasped 

 in his mandibles. Nor was she apparently much less 

 eager than he, for on two occasions, when he was a little 

 longer than usual in following her, she came forth herself 

 apparently in search of him. It was noticeable that they 

 invariably took up the same position in the same spot at 

 the entrance of the tube, the female lying on her right 

 side with her head towards the posterior extremity of the 

 tube, the male standing over her facing the opposite way. 

 A sketch made of them in this position agrees almost 

 exactly with a figure that Dr. McCook has given of the 

 attitude assumed under similar circumstances of the 

 North American species, Agalena navia. When I left 

 this interesting couple the female had retired to the 

 back of the tube, while the male sat on guard at the 

 entrance. I say on guard, because when touched with 

 my forceps he, instead of running away, raised high his 

 forelegs, striking the instrument with them, and snapping 

 at it with his mandibles. The way in which all the instincts 

 for the preservation of the individual were overridden in 

 this instance by the instinct for the preservation of the 

 race brought very vividly before me the force of Prof. 

 Lloyd Morgan's happy paraphrase of Shakespeare — " To 

 breed or not to breed, that is the question." 



Aiiiaiirobius siinu'is. — This spider is very common in 

 Cornwall, as elsewhere. It belongs to the same great 

 group of tube- weavers as Agaletia, spinning a tubular 

 web in ivy, holes in walls, &c., and surrounding the 

 aperture with a tissue of irregularly interlacing somewhat 

 loosely woven threads which present a white thickened 

 appearance, owing to the presence of flocculent' tufts of 

 silk that are produced by the agency of those interesting 

 spinning organs, the cribelhini and calamistrum. Like 

 Agalena and Tegenaria, Aniaiirobius runs with agility 

 on the upper surface of its web. A. siinilis is much 

 smaller than Agalena labyrinthica, but does not appear 

 to be so timid. I could never be sure of attracting 

 Agalena to a vibrating tuning-fork, but Amatirobius 

 would always come and even climb along the instrument. 

 I have enticed this species from its hole by holding the 

 vibrating-fork near the aperture, although not in contact 

 with any part of the web. And all the specimens that 

 were noticed on the external sheet of the web responded 

 invariably when the vibrating-fork was held above them 

 at a distance of about half an inch. But instead of run- 

 ning away from the instrument, or reaching up at it as 

 the Epeiridce do, Amaurobius moved excitedly about, 

 apparently searching for the cause of the vibration. One 

 specimen while thus searching came across and instantly 

 seized the old dried-up carcase of a blue-bottle fly, as if 

 perfectly satisfied with the result of its investigation. 

 Another example, discovered away from her web, made 

 no response whatever when the fork was held close to 



