ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



h\ R. S. . Photo 



STRIPKD BASS (SOCCUS LJNEATUS) 



River. 1903). begin with a note on the very 

 curious Saturnid moth found there, high on the 

 hills, which spins its web on communal lines. 

 A number join together to make a huge web 

 which is sometimes two feet and more across. 

 The natives use the web ( which somewhat re- 

 sembles cloth) as a head-dress to keep out the 

 rain. It is perfectly water-tight." 



The reader has probably before getting thus 

 far asked himself if large insects may not be 

 caught in these great strong nets, as flies are 

 caught in our country in the weaker webs of 

 our smaller spiders, and in answer to this query 

 the following accounts are given : 



Thomas Belt in his "'Naturalist in Nicaragua" 

 (London. 1874.) writes (p. 108). that: "Here a 

 large spider had built strong yellow silken webs, 

 joined one to another, so as to make a complete 

 curtain of web. in which were entangled many 

 large butterflies, generally forest species, caught 

 when flying across the clearing." 



So also D'Albertis (1881. Vol. I. p. 38S . 

 speaks of a large spider which had made a net 

 under one of his boxes and in it had taken pris- 

 oner a butterfly at least ten times its own size. 



However, the natives of New Guinea are not 

 content to let the butterflies catch themselves 

 in the spider webs, but actually make nets for 

 the purpose of catching them. Witness Meek 

 (1913. pp. 140-141): 



"They capture specimens (of a large hairy 

 butterfly living in the mountains), too. with nets 

 most ingeniously made of spiders' webs. The 

 manner of making these nets was this: With a 

 very fine forked stick the native would make 

 something like the framework of a tennis rac- 

 quet. This he would run again and again 

 through and through the strong web spun by 



the big yellow spider com- 

 mon to the bush there. Hav- 

 ing thus got s o m e web 

 across the net. I have some- 

 times seen the natives get a 

 big fat spider onto the 

 frame, then shake him off. 

 As he tried to climb up they 

 would keep twisting the 

 frame and shaking it slight- 

 lv to p re v en t him ever 

 reaching it. Thus the spi- 

 der was made to spin fresh 

 strands for the net." 



It should be noted here 



that these butterflies are so 



large that the alternative 



method of taking them is by 



shooting them with a bow 



and arrow. They were as large as fair-sized 



hedge-row birds. From this we can reckon the 



strength of the net. 



The possibility of birds being caught in such 

 large and strong spider-webs has also probably 

 occurred to the reader, and hence the following 

 accounts will be of interest. 



For our first reference to this we must go 

 back to Sloane ( 1725) who says of spiders' webs 

 in Jamaica that they are made of silken threads 

 so strong that they "will stop not only small 

 birds, but even wild pigeons." While for earlier 

 authorities than himself he quotes Jan de I.aet. 

 Peter Martyr, and one "Smith of Bermudas" 

 that spiders' webs are known in the West In- 

 dies to catch birds as big as blackbirds. 



Mosely (1892) records the following inter- 

 esting occurrence: 



"At Little Ke Island (South of the west end 

 of New Guinea ) von Willemoes Suhm actually 

 found a strong and healthy glossy starling 

 caught fast in a yellow spider's web. and he 

 took the bird out alive and brought it on board 

 the ship to be preserved." 



Meek (1913) says that sucli nets are used for 

 catching butterflies, as his description quoted 

 above shows, and possibly also for catching 

 small birds. 



We now come to the use of spiders' webs for 

 fish nets, and in addition to the data given in 

 the former paper, the following brief accounts 

 are set forth. 



Hardy and Elkington in their fascinating 

 book "In the Savage South Seas." London. 1907. 

 describe in detail many interesting methods of 

 fishing, but. in describing the various kinds of 

 nets used, merely note of ours. "Some are even 

 made of a tough spider's web." From this mere 



