THE BIRD-CATCHING SPIDER. 49J 



Captain Stedman, while residing in Surinam, had 

 one of them given to him, which he put into a 

 case-bottle above eight inches high ; and, when this 

 was filled with spirits, the animal reached the surface 

 with some of its claws, while others rested on the 

 bottom. On the whole, he says, this spider is so 

 hideous a creature that the very sight of it is suffici- 

 ent to occasion a tremor of aborrence, even in per- 

 sons most accustomed to inspect the deformities 

 of nature *. 



It resides in the trees, and frequently seizes on 

 small birds, which it destroys by sucking their 

 blood, after having first wounded them by its fangs, 

 which distil a poisonous liquid into the wound. 

 The slit or orifice near the tip of the fangs, through 

 which this poison is emitted, is so visible as to be 

 distinctly perceived without a glass f. 



The eight eyes of this terrible insect are placed 

 somewhat in the form of an oblong square in the 

 front of the thorax. Of these the two middle ones 

 are so large as to be capable of being set in the man- 

 ner of glasses, and used as microscopes : the rest 

 are smaller and of an oval shape. The thorax is 

 orbicular, and has a transverse central excavation. 



In Jamaica there is a species of Spider J, the fe- 

 male of which digs a hole in the earth obliquely 

 downward, about three inches in length, and one 

 inch in diameter ; this cavity she lines with a tough 



* Stedman's Surinam. f Shaw's Nat. Mis. i. tab. 1*. 



X Aranea nidulan*, Gmcl, Syst. Nat. Linn. 



