No. 2.] PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCES IN SPIDERS. 67 



The wasps that were watched by Fabre, dared not enter 

 the nests of the spiders they wished to capture, only attacking 

 them when they came partly outside. 



Lastly, we ourselves have opened a number of Sphex nests, 

 which we always found to contain twenty-five or thirty spiders, 

 nearly all of them being E. strix. 



In regard to the other enemies of spiders, I will quote again 

 from Mr. Smith's letter: 



" The smaller monkeys, I know, prey upon spiders a good 

 deal ; they seem to delight in tearing them to pieces even when 

 they do not eat them. I have observed this frequently with 

 small Cibi and marmosets. To these mammalia I should add 

 some kinds of armadilloes and all the ant-eaters; the latter 

 devour 'white ants' by preference, but I have generally found 

 their stomachs filled with all sorts of insects, wasps, beetles, etc., 

 and (if I remember rightly) terrestrial spiders. Snakes eat 

 spiders sometimes, as I can attest from actual observation ; no 

 doubt lizards do the same. Owls may sometimes eat the larger 

 nocturnal species, and I feel pretty sure that I have seen other 

 birds eating them. Foraging ants (Eciion) kill great numbers 

 of terrestrial spiders and some arboreal ones, though the latter 

 generally escape them bj^ letting themselves down on lines. 

 Scorpions do not eat spiders I think ; at all events the latter do 

 not seem at all afraid of them. Except the foraging ants, I 

 never saw ants attack living spiders ; the butchery is all on the 

 other side. As you observe, the spiders eat each other ; yet I 

 should not think that the destruction from this cause was very 

 great. Spiders as well as insects are sometimes killed by para- 

 sitic fungi." 



My own observations have led me to think that hunting 

 and running spiders prey to a considerable extent upon each 

 other. We have had great difficulty in keeping numbers of 

 Attidse, even of one species, together in our boxes, since, although 

 they were supplied with gnats and flies, they preferred to 

 devour each other. Phid. morsitans, Phid. rufus, Hasai^ius hoyi, 

 Asiia vitlata and Phil. mUitaris were especially troublesome in 



