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 Coniferce and Eucalypti. 



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 



