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THE GREAT INDIAN SPIDERS, 
The Genus Poecilotheria : its Habits, History, and Species, 
By R. 1. POCOCK, of the British Museum of Natural History. 
WirH A PLATE. 
Part 1.—Observations on the Habits and History of the Genus. 
Tue Genus Peeilotheria is a representative of that great and almost 
cosmopolitan group of spiders which was formerly included under the 
comprehensive title Mygale—a term which is stillto be found in many cecent 
text-books of zoology and also in popular works on natural history, where 
special reference to them is made on account of their size and alleged pro- 
pensity for killing and eating small birds, The truth on this point appears 
to be as follows :— 
Madame Merian, who was one of the first to make known the existence of 
these large spiders, although stating that the species she observed in Surinam 
feeds mostly on ants, asserted that they also take young humming-birds from 
their nests when the supply of insects runs short ; and this description is 
accompanied by a coloured figure of a spider devouring one of these birds. 
The accuracy of this observation was subsequently confirmed by Mr. Bates, 
and who also gave illustration of the destruction of a small bird by one of 
these great spiders, A similar story accompanied by another figure is told in 
‘The Illustrated Natural History’ by the late Rev, J. G. Wood. Thus from 
the small substratum of fact established by Madame Merian arse the wide- 
spread and -ensational belief that the staple article of food of these spiders 
consists of small birds. Asa matter of fact, there is nv doubt that they feed 
almost entirely upon insects; but they will certainly also kill and devour 
any living animal they are powerful enough to overcome, In support of this 
statement aud of those made by Madame Merian and Mr. Bates it may be 
added that during his stay in Borneo Mr, A, Everett captured a specimen of 
the species I have described as Phormingochilus tigrinus ina bird’s nest, 
where it had killed the young bird ; and that the specimen of Pecilotheria 
described below as P. regalis and figured in the accompanying plate was 
when captured, devouring a small rat which presumably it had killed. 
Apart from diet, these large spiders differ somewhat in mode of life. Most 
of them live on the groun] beneath stones or in deep burrows which are 
excavated in the soil and lined with a layer of silk, to prevent the in‘all of 
loose particles of earth or sand, Others, again, are found in trees, where they 
Spin a light silken downicile either between forked branches, or in the hollow 
trunk, or in leaves rolled up for the purpose, The species of Pecilotheria 
are now known to be tr e-living forms. Colonel Yerbury, for instance, tells 
me that in Ceylon he discovered P. fusciata on trunks of trees, where they 
spin a light web in the angle formed by a projecting branch ; and a specimen 
of a species closely allied to P. regales that ‘was sent from the Thana 
district in the Bombay Presideucy by Mr, A. G. :Edie fell off a tree when 1 
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