100 



at one end. In the present instance the lower part of the web was broken, and two 

 pretty small finches were entangled in its folds ; the finch was about the size of the 

 common siskin of Europe, and I judged the two to be male and female; one of them 

 was quite dead, but secured in the broken web ; the other was under the body of the 

 spider, not quite dead, and was covered in parts with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded 

 by the monster. I was on my return from a day's excursion by land at the time, with 

 my boxes full of valuable and delicate insects and six miles from my house, and 

 therefore could not have broui^ht the specimens home, even if I had wished, which I 

 did not, as the spider was a very common species, easily to be procured nearer home. 

 The species I cannot name ; I sent several fine specimens, stuffed, to London, 

 in 1851 ; it is wholly of a gray-brown colour and clothed with coarse pile. Doubtless, 

 you will immediately know the exact species to which I refer. 



"If the Mygales did not prey upon vertebrated animals I do not see how 

 they could find suflUcient subsistence. 



" On the extensive sandy campos of Santarem, so bare in vegetation, there are 

 hundreds of the broad slanting burrows of the large stout species (that fine one, dark 

 brown, with paler brown lines down the legs, of which I sent specimens in 1851). The 

 campos, I know, from close research, to be almost destitute of insects, but at the same 

 time swarm with small lizards, and some curious ground finches of the Emberiza 

 group (one of which has a song wonderfully resembling our yellow bunting of 

 England), besides which, vast numbers of the Caprimulgidae and ground doves 

 lay their eggs on the bare ground. I believe this species of Mygale feeds on 

 these animals and their eggs at night. Just at the close of day when I have 

 been hurrying home, not liking to be benighted on the pathless waste, I have 

 surprised these monsters, who retreated within the mouths of their burrows on my 

 approach.'' 



Some conversation ensued on the supposed poisonous nature of spiders, and 

 the strength of the webs formed by various species, in which the President, Mr. West- 

 wood, Mr. Meade, Captain Cox, &c., took part. 



Note on Otiorhynchus sulcatiis. 

 Under this title Mr. Newman read the following paper : — 



" In the later mouths of summer this weevil may frequently be seen crawling about 

 the wood-work of the fern-house, especially at night ; and who does not visit his fernery 

 by night? But occasionally you may also find the female clinging to the stipes or 

 frond-stalks, especially of Adiantum, Cystojiteris and Asplenium, genera which send 

 up fronds in succession until the stalks look like a little forest: nestled among these, 

 and with its head upwards, it drops its small white globular eggs, which fall quite free, 

 and seem neither to attach themselves by any viscid covering nor to be attached 

 designedly by the parent to the frond-stalks or other substances which may happen to 

 be at hand. We must allow imagination to picture the hatching of the egg and the 

 descent of the tiny grub: I find the juvenile depredators a few days afterwards 

 ensconced in snug little cavities of the caudex scarcely large enough to admit the 

 head of the smallest pin: they are now minute, jelly-like, transparent legless maggots ; 

 I say jelly-like, because the word describes their appearance with great exactness; but 

 it must not be understood as implying the possession of the moist or mucous surface 



