Observations upon the Tarantula. 73 



successively into his mouth with his feelers. He then threw 

 away the triturated remains, and swept them to a distance 

 from his hiding-place. After his repast, he seldom omitted 

 attending to his toilet, which consisted in brushing, with the 

 tarsi of his anterior legs, his feelers and mandibles, without as 

 well as within ; and, having done this, he resumed his attitude 

 of immovable gravity. The evening and night were his times 

 of walking and attempting to escape. I often heard him 

 scratching against the paper of his prison. These nocturnal 

 habits confirmed the opinion I have already advanced, that 

 the greater number of spiders have, like cats, the faculty of 

 seeing by night as well as by day. 



The 28th of June, my tarantula changed his skin ; and this 

 moult, which was the last, did not alter, in any perceptible 

 manner, either the colour of his covering or the size of his 

 body. 



The 14-th of July, I was obliged to leave Valencia; and I 

 remained absent till the 23d. During this time the taran- 

 tula fasted. I found him quite well upon my return. The 

 20th of August, I was again absent for a period of nine days, 

 which my prisoner supported without food, and without 

 any alteration in his health. The 1st of October, I again left 

 the tarantula without any provision. The 2 1st of this month, 

 being twenty leagues from Valencia, where I was about to 

 remain, I sent a servant to bring him to me. I had the 

 regret of finding that the vase which contained him was no 

 where to be met with ; and I could not learn his fate. 



I shall terminate my remarks upon the tarantula by a short 

 description of a singular combat between these creatures. In 

 the month of June, 1810, one day, when I had been success- 

 ful in my search after the Lycosae, I chose two full-grown and 

 very vigorous males, which I put together into a large vase, 

 that I might witness the spectacle of a mortal combat. After 

 having many times made the circuit of their arena, in the 

 endeavour to shun each other, they hastened, as at a given 

 signal, to set themselves in a warlike attitude. I saw them, 

 with surprise, taking their distance, and gravely rising upon 

 their hind legs, so as to present to each other the buckler 

 formed by their chests. After having looked each other in 

 the face for about two minutes, and, without doubt, provoked 

 each other by glances which I could not discern, I saw them 

 throw themselves upon one another, entwine their legs, and 

 endeavour, in an obstinate struggle, to wound each other with 

 the hooks of their mandibles. Either from fatigue, or by 

 mutual consent, the combat was for a while suspended : there 

 was a truce for some seconds; and each wrestler, retiring to a 



Vol, I. — No. 2. n. s. g 



