THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 19 



cliance I noticed them on the 10th of December, which was 

 a mild foggy day following four or five days of great cold and 

 iVost, and to my surprise found the glass tumbler, in which 

 the eggs were placed, alive with larvae, at least two hundred 

 of them. I at once got some buds of the ash, which were 

 very little developed and quite hard, and placed them in the 

 glass; some of the buds I cut open. On examining them 

 this afternoon I believe there are not more than four of five 

 of the larvae alive, and these have eaten into the ])erfect buds, 

 leaving a small round hole where they have entered : the 

 remainder are all dead at the bottom of the tumbler. I 

 imagine that ai liberty the female moth deposits her eggs 

 within the fold of the sheath of the incipient bud of the ash, 

 so that the larva on emerging at once finds itself in close 

 contact with its food, without having to perfi)rate the hard 

 sheath, and that the eggs hatch about the middle of December, 

 provided the weather be mild, and not much later, as the 

 larvae are found half grown towards the middle of April. — 

 Bernard Hariley ; Park View, Ponief'ractj Dec. 14, 18()9. 



Note on the " Grecjarious Spiders of Parayuay^ — '* Facts 

 are stubborn things," and if what Mr. Masterman records 

 (Entom, iv. 359 et seq.) in respect to spiders swallowing the 

 substance of their prey, as well as pellets of silk, be fact, the 

 conclusions of arachnologists would certainly seem to have 

 been hitherto erroneous. One hardly likes to question the 

 accuracy of observations stated by the observer to have been 

 carefully verified, still I find myself rather inclined to believe 

 that Mr. Masterman was deceived, than that spiders could 

 perform what seems so impracticable for them to do upon 

 anatomical grounds. As regards " four-eyed spiders," a 

 remarkable genus possessing only that niunber of eyes has 

 lately been described by myself in the 'Proceedings of the 

 Liunean Society;' but from Mr. Maslerman's general de- 

 scription of his spiders, I conclude them to have been of the 

 genus Nephila: this geuus, however, possesses eight eyes; 

 lour of these are conspicuous and only placed on the centre 

 of the fore part of the caput, somewhat in the form of a 

 square, while the other lour are in two lateral pairs; each 

 consists of two smaller eyes near together, but considerably 

 removed from the central four, which might therefore easily 

 be taken, by anyone not accustomed to examine s})iders 



