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XXI. Note on My gale stridulans. By Prof. James 

 Wood-Mason. 



[Read 5th September, 1877.] 



Until "Westring had placed on record (in " Naturliist. 

 Tidshrift," vol. iv. 1842—43, p. 349; ii. 1846—49, p. 342; 

 et " Arane^e Suecicte," p. 184) his interesting discovery 

 that the males of several species of Theridion have the 

 poAver of making stridulating sounds, no single member 

 of the great class AracJinicla was known in which stridu- 

 lating organs are developed. In 1876, I brought to 

 notice (in Proc. As. Soc. Beng. and Ann. and Mag. Nat. 

 Hist.), and ascertained the position and described the 

 structure of the apparatus in, the great stridulating Mycjale 

 of Assam, discovered some years previously by Mr. S. E. 

 Peal, who has furnished the following interesting account 

 of the circumstances under which the discovery was made, 

 and the accompanying spirited sketch of the animal in the 

 attitude it assumes when stridulating : " The noise made 

 is both peculiar and loud; it resembles that made by 

 pouring out small shot on to a plate from a height of a 

 few inches, or, better still, by drawing the back of a knife 

 along the edge of a strong comb. The stridulation is 

 very distinct, and has a ring about it which I do not 

 notice in the Orthoptera, wherein it more closely resembles 

 a whistling sound. It is now some six years since I first 

 heard it, and under the follo^ving circumstances : some 

 Assamese were cutting out an old bamboo-clump, the 

 ground under which was dry and full of decayed roots 

 and of holes; white ants had made a nest there, and I 

 collected several ' queens.' While attending to these, 

 with my back to the clump, at a distance of some four or 

 five feet, I suddenly heard this peculiar noise, and, turning, 

 saw the man who was hoeing the mound making futile 

 blows with his hoe at a huge black spider that kept up 

 this curious sound ; but, the ground fortunately being 

 uneven, none of the blows took effect, and I soon secured 

 the prize. On reaching the bungalow, I undid the cloth 

 in which it had hastily been secured, beneath an inverted 

 tea-sieve, to avoid the possibiUty of escape. On stirring 

 the cloth the spider ran out, whereu])on my cat (which 

 had an'ived upon the scene while the spider Avas still 

 hidden amidst the folds of the cloth, and had walked round 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1877. — PART IV. (^DEC.) 



