170 NATURAL HISTORY. 



The gigantic species of the typical genus Mygale, in which the body is covered with a rough, 

 hairy coat, and the legs are also stout and hairy, chiefly inhabit the warmer parts of America and the 

 West Indian Islands, although several species of them, and some of them of large size, are found in 

 the Eastern Hemisphere. So far as the observations of naturalists at present go, most of them, at 

 any rate, do not burrow in the ground, but reside in the grooves and fissures of the bark of trees, in 

 the crevices between stones, and in other sheltered places, where they commonly spin a more or less 

 tubular silken dwelling of suitable size, within which also the female deposits her eggs, enclosed in a 

 regular case of white silk, to the number, according to some observers, of 1,800 or 2,000. The 

 Spiders usually go in pursuit of their prey in the evening and during the darkness of the night, when 

 they seize upon and destroy all the insects and other Arthropods that they are able to surprise and 

 overcome, whilst, according to stories which have come down to us from a tolerably distant past, they 

 are not content with insects alone, but even prey upon small birds and other Vertebrates. It would 

 appear, indeed, from an observation of Mr. Bates, that there is some truth in their possession of these 

 bird-catching propensities, in allusion to which Linnaeus gave one of the large Surinam species 

 described and figured by Madame Merian the specific name avicularia. Mr. Bates on one 

 occasion found two small birds hanging in a torn web which was stretched across a cleft in a tree. 

 One of them was already dead ; the other, upon the body of which the Spider was resting, was at the 

 point of death, and died soon after his taking it in his hands. He found that the observation of 

 this habit of the Spider was quite new to the natives on the banks of the Amazon, and thus some 

 doubt still remained as to its powers of bird-catching, and we believe that the gigantic Spiders which 

 have been brought to the London Zoological Gardens from South America have not been experimented 

 upon with birds ; but Mr. Bartlett said that one of them attacked and killed a mouse. At the 

 same time, it is very curious that the formidable falces of the large MygalicUe are regarded with so 

 little dread by the Indian children in the Amazonian region, that Mr. Bates actually found the latter 

 on one occasion leading about one of these monsters by a thread put round his middle. The specimens 

 that have been kept in the Regent's Park were fed chiefly upon Cockroaches and Meal Worms; one that 

 was kept some years ago in Danzig killed and devoured some young frogs and other Amphibians. 

 Several of the species exceed two inches and a half long, and their legs cover a surface of five or 

 six inches in diameter. 



A considerable number of species of rather smaller size than the above, and chiefly inhabiting 

 the Old World, live in burrows which they excavate in the ground and line with a tube of silk. 

 They generally close their habitations with a regular, closely-fitting door, attached to one side of the 

 aperture by a silken hinge, and, from this peculiar construction of their domicile, they are known 

 commonly as "Trap-door Spiders." The trap-door is composed of earthy particles firmly held 

 together with layers of silk, and, although sometimes it consists of a mere flap falling down over the 

 aperture, it is, in most cases, a regular stopper, accurately fitting into the orifice of the burrow. In 

 some instances the Spider shows still more ingenuity in fitting up its abode as a place of refuge. After 

 making the main nest, it works through at one side, and there digs both upwards and downwards, 

 obliquely, so as to produce a side chamber into which it can retreat should some enemy succeed iix 

 opening the trap-door ; and the lateral chamber is cut off from the main burrow by a silky curtain- 

 like door, which hangs before it, and thus apparently completes the inner lining of the tube. Gteniza. 

 fodiens, figured, with its nest, of the natural size, in our Plate 65, is a well-known South European 

 species, especially abundant in Corsica. These Spiders issue from their nests at night in search of 

 prey, and, after they have retreated into their fortresses, they will resist the opening of their trap- 

 doors by clinging to the lining of the tube and to the inner coat of silk composing the doors. The 

 females deposit their eggs in a silken cocoon at the bottom of their nest, and are said by some 

 naturalists to carry their young about with them for a time after they are hatched. 



Some of the species, including the single British type of the group (Atypus suheri], construct a 

 somewhat different kind of nest. Atypus sulzeri, a Spider nearly half an inch long, with a large 

 cephalothorax and enormous projecting falces, is found in several parts of England, principally in the 

 south, and excavates as its dwelling-place a more or less cylindrical gallery, almost half au inch in 

 diameter, in moist ground, the direction of which is usually at fii-st horizontal and then vertical for a 

 greater or less part of its length. The interior of this domicile the Spider lines with a compact 



