ON ARACHNIDA. 461 



the hooks with which its tarsi are armed, or to the claws 

 which it employs to kill the birds, and the anolis. The 

 obstinacy and bitterness which it exhibits in combat cease 

 only with its life. I have seen some which pierced twenty 

 times through and through the corslet, still continued to assail 

 their adversaries, without showing the least desire of escaping 

 them by flight. In the moment of danger, this spider usually 

 seeks a support against which it can rise itself, and mark the 

 opportunity of casting itself upon its enemies. Its four 

 posterior feet are then fixed upon the ground ; but the others 

 half extended, are ready to seize the animal which it is about 

 to attack. When it darts upon it, it fastens itself upon its 

 body with all the double hooks that terminate its feet, and 

 stretches to obtain the superior base of the head, that it may 

 sink its talons between the cranium and the first vertebra. 

 In some other American insects, I have recognized the same 

 instinct of destruction. 



" When the mygale applies its claws on a hard and polished 

 body, we see there immediately the traces of a liquid, which 

 must be the poison that it ejects, and that renders its 

 sting, or bite, dangerous. Nevertheless I have been unable 

 to discover the issue through which the emission of this fluid 

 is made, the effects of which are considered to be very formid- 

 able in the West Indian islands. Never, either, have I seen 

 the mygale employ, as has been strongly asserted, another 

 fluid secreted by glands situated at the extremity of the ab- 

 domen, and which is said to be darted by it against its 

 adversaries, to blind them by its corrosive qualities. The 

 individuals of this species, wdiich I have preserved for a long 

 time, and in great numbers, never had recourse to this means, 

 in the combats which they carried on for the possession of 

 their prey ; but I have recognized the existence of this 

 liquor, which is lactescent, and singularly abundant in pro- 

 portion to the size of the animal. 



