MOSQUITOES AND SPIDERS. 63 



Tin's little creature is only about an inch long, but by the 

 friction of the wings on a pair of minute roughened tubes, it 

 produces a shrill stridulous sound which causes the woods to 

 resound with the vibration, and when very near to it seems 

 to make the ears tingle. 



There is another insect common to every part of the 

 tropics, and to many temperate countries also, which is far 

 too numerous in Madagascar — I mean the mosquito. In the 

 interior we are comparatively free from this minute plague 

 in the cold season, but in many parts of the warmer mari- 

 time plains it is a terrible pest all the year round, and is 

 said to often cause the death of young animals left exposed 

 to its attacks. This I can well believe from what I have 

 seen in several places — seen, but also heard, and unmistak- 

 ably felt. But in travelling to the north-west coast we fell 

 in with another insect pest in addition to the mosquito. 

 This was a stinging fly called aldy. It is about a third the 

 size of a house-fly, but with the wings less divergent. It 

 attacks with a sharp prick, sometimes drawing blood. The 

 flies are found in swarms along a belt of beautifully-wooded 

 country with clear streams of bright sparkling water. They 

 fly by day, but retire as soon as the sun sets, when their place 

 is taken by the mosquitoes, who roam by night ; so that the 

 unfortunate traveller has little respite either by night or day. 



Many of the spiders of Madagascar are very large and 

 brilliantly coloured. The legs of some of the largest spread 

 over a circle of six or seven inches in diameter. They spin 

 immense geometric webs, which span the beds of considerable 

 streams or wide paths ; and these are anchored to the sur- 

 rounding vegetation by such strong silken cords that it 

 requires an effort to break them. Some years ago I spent a 

 long afternoon on a hill to the south of the capital with two 

 friends, catching spiders. We obtained a great number, in- 

 cluding from thirty to forty different species ; some of these 

 were like small crabs rather than spiders. Only recently, 

 however, did I meet with one of the venomous spiders of the 

 island. This insect is about the size of a small marble, 

 almost perfectly globular in shape, of a shining glossy black, 

 and with black legs, but it has a small red spot on the 



