1896.] SPIDERS FROM THE LOWER AMAZONS. 743 
silk, with one or more openings at the entrance, would be con- 
structed amongst the palm-leaf thatch of the native houses. 
The spiders would often be seen sitting near the tube on the 
outsides of the palm-stem, nor were they either very rapid in 
their movements or inclined to attack those who interfered with 
them; merely raising themselves on their hind legs in an attitude 
of defence. 
I was not successful, however, in securing any clue to the nature 
of their food; no débris of any sort was to be found in the nest 
itself, nor did T even surprise one in the act of seizing or devouring 
its prey. 
Males, too, were apparently very scarce, for not a single 
specimen of this sex was met with. 
Beyond the raising themselves on the last two pairs of legs and 
striking with the mandibles, I noticed no habit worth mentioning. 
I might, however, call attention to the scrabbling, rustling, 
pattering noise made by the spider in running upon any dry 
substance. A pair of large Avicularias, striving to escape from an 
umbrella into which they have fallen from the banana leaves, make 
a most appalling noise. Such a noise is entirely unexpected from 
spiders whose feet are so well padded with soft hairs beneath; but 
whether the noise is made by the claws, which I doubt, or by the 
soft pad, which is difficult to believe, I am so far unable to decide. 
AVICULARIA AVICULARIA VARIEGATA, subspecies noy. (Plate 
XXXIII. fig. 12, 9.) 
Hab. Stacoitiara, Lower Amazons. 
Similar to the above in all respects except that the long hairs 
are grizzled with grey at the tips, and very thick, especially on the 
third and fourth pairs of legs. The apex of the tarsi, too, is tipped 
with a narrow band of pink hairs, while there is a noticeable and 
entire absence of the fiery-red hairs so characteristic of Avicularia 
on the legs. The abdomen, too, is clothed on the sides with long 
erizzled and delicate pink hairs, not fiery-red, while the whole 
body is of a delicate mossy-green tint, from the green-grey pubes« 
cence, harmonizing well with the foliage amongst which they live. 
Of this beautiful variety I beat two specimens, females, into an 
umbrella from banana trees in the neighbourhood of Itacoitiara or 
Serpa, on the north bank of the Amazons, Feb. 7, 1896. 
The most interesting point about these two varieties seems to 
be—judging of course entirely by the long series captured over a 
distance of a thousand miles inland on the Amazons—that as we 
went further west there began to be a tendency to grizzled hairs. 
One specimen in particular, taken from a banana tree in a clearing 
in the forest at Santarem, presents a distinctly intermediate 
character between these two extreme forms, the hairs of the 
first two pairs of legs being decidedly grizzled. 1t would have 
been very interesting to compare the males of the grizzled form, 
variegata, with males of the typical Avicularia ; but fortune did 
not favour me in this respect. 
