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ON PECULIARITIES IN ATTIS SPIDERS. 
W. W. STRICKLAND, B.A., 
Tue Attis spiders are so extremely variable, that I doubt whether 
any sort of approximately exhaustive list has been made of their 
species. I have been several times to the Buitenzorg Gardens, 
and seated myself at the spot where I saw the first Attis spider 
that changed the colour of its eyes,* and many varieties have 
continually appeared. One of them was a small spider of a 
livid green colour, the same size as the green spider with 
yellowish markings previously described. To my great satisfac- 
tion I found that it too had the faculty of changing the colour 
of its eyes from black to green ; what was better still, I succeeded 
in catching it in a pocket-handkerchief, and taking it alive to 
the museum. Here Major Owens put it into a large glass 
bottle, and it speedily showed off its remarkable faculty, both 
to him and to the Curator, Mynheer Koningsbuyer. Finally, on 
my return to Batavia, I caught two specimens of a smalier 
kind of Attis, which possesed the same faculty. They were 
the colour of light whitey brown paper with a few darker 
markings. The change of colour of their eyes was from nearly 
black to nearly white (a very light whitey brown). Both the 
specimens were bottled and sent to our authority in spiders, 
Mr. R. I. Pocock, but whether they reached him alive I cannot 
say, as he has not yet acknowledged their receipt. At Garoot, 
a mvuuntain station on the Preanger (Battlefield), where the 
climate is relatively cool, a good many Attis spiders were caught ; 
two species of large brown ones, with nearly black eyes, and 
a medium vivid whitey brown kind with nearly black stripings 
and mottlings. There was also a fourth kind, intermediate in 
colour between the brown and the whitey brown ones. All 
I caught I bottled alive, and they lived together in tolerable 
harmony so long as they had nothing to eat; one day, however, 
in a bottle containing three of the large dark brown kind and 
one smallish whitey brown one I put a fly, thinking it would 
help to keep them alive and vigorous. The way one of the 
large brown Attides leapt upon the fly and killed it would have 
delighted those members of the sporting world to whom bull 
baiting and cock-fighting appeal irresistibly. Next morning, 
however, I found that the introduction of the fly had had tragic 
results. One of the large spiders was dead and another dying. 
Whether the fly had caused a surfeit, or been of a poisonous 
——— ee _______ EEE 
* See ‘ Naturalist,, November, 1906, pages 401-402. 
1907 April I. 
