176 Transactions.—Zoology. 
greenish-yellow resemble the faded leaves and puberulent sepals; the dark 
grey—especially when covered with whitish hairs—are not unlike the pods. 
Of the few brightly-coloured spiders we possess that may be considered to 
have protective colouring, one is to be met with amongst the leaf-spines and 
yellow blossoms, which harmonize well with its bright dark-green body and 
yellow and white tubercles ; the latter might pass off for small flower- 
buds. Little greenish-buff or light stone-coloured spiders, with pointed 
abdomens, will sometimes be mistaken for the buds, owing to their habit of 
crouching in the ascils of the leaf-spines. 
Hedges of kangaroo acacia (Acacia armata) are inhabited by reddish- 
brown or greenish-brown spiders, according to the prevailing tints of the 
wood. 
This autumn I found on the fading petals of a yellow dahlia a rather 
large dark-brown and orange-yellow spider, possessing such perfect assimi- 
lative hues, that by an untrained eye it was mistaken for a part of the 
blossom. This, however, is not an exceptional case, so accurately do the 
tints blend, and so adapted are their attitudes to their particular haunts 
that spiders are often undistinguishable at a few feet distance. 
On fruit trees interesting forms are occasionally met with, although spiders 
are comparatively scarce, except in the winter and spring months, when they 
are inhabited by numerous young Epeirides, which are worthy of attention, 
for although many of them are very minute, the faculty of discerning the 
tints that correspond with their own seems fully developed. The little 
reddish spiders are, as a rule, on red-barked trees; the browns and greys 
in branches with similar hues. They also derive protection from the special 
form and colouring of the figure on the abdomen; the dull white spot on 
some of the smaller spiders is not unlike a scale insect ; the heart-shaped 
pattern on the larger spiders is by no means a bad imitation of a bud 
covered with-greyish tomentum. Crouched on the diseased boughs of pear 
trees small spiders will sometimes be found possessing the colouring of the 
blighted bark and lichens. Amongst other naturalized plants, interesting 
examples are to be found on the Conifere and KEucalypti. 
The beautiful little quasi-parasitic spiders found on the webs of the large 
Epeirids, owing to their silvery hemispherical abdomens and habit of sus- 
pending themselves by their slender legs, may possibly derive some protec- 
tion through being mistaken for dew-drops. They fall to the ground when 
threatened. 
The majority of terrestrial spiders are earth-coloured and other dull 
tints ; many of them have one or more bands of a different shade or colour, 
which, no doubt, from their habit of hunting amongst herbage and exfoliate 
bark, yield them the same protection as similar stripes do many of the 
