I8d6.] SMDEttS FftOM SitB tOWEa 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 bo seen sitting near the tube on the 

 outsides of the palm-stem, nor were they either very rapid in 

 their moyements 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 debris of any sort was to be found in the nest 

 itself, nor did I even surprise one in the act of seizing or devouring 

 its prey. 



Males, too, were a])parently 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 largo 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 liairs beneath ; but 

 whether the noise is made by the claws, which 1 doubt, or by the 

 soft pad, which is difficult to believe, I am so far unable to decide. 



AviouLAEiA AviouLAEiA vABiBSATA, subspecies nov. (Plate 

 XXXIII. fig. 12, ? .) 



ffab. Itacoitiara, 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 

 thii'd and fourth pairs of legs. The apex of the tarsi, too, is tipped 

 with a narrow band of pinlc 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 

 grizzled 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 1 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 tivo pairs of legs being decidedly grizzled. It 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. 



