264 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
subsists, frequently killing and eating her enamoured and too rashly approaching swain. 
Among the Nephile and other types in which the male is of such diminutive relative 
size, these cannibalistic propensities are apparently held in abeyance. The husband is 
too unsubstantial a morsel for even the tickling of his partner’s palate, and his safety 
is consequently secured by his very insignificance. On several occasions the writer 
observed a male individual approaching the female here delineated without eliciting 
from her any signs of hostility, with the exception that on one occasion, when 
he slowly walked up to within reach of her terrible fangs, she simply pushed 
him away with her palpi. lRepulsed in front, he then made a strategic detour 
to the rear, and was soon to be seen gaily disporting himself on the plump 
outlines of his tolerant consort. Between the bloated body and chitinous head 
or cephalothorax of the female, there was necessarily on the dorsal side a 
conspicuous notch or cleft. To the Liliputian male this was a formidable 
gulf, and he accordingly wove across it a silken carpet, which allowed him to 
run with unimpeded ease from stem to stern of his veritable mountain of delight. 
The method by which these huge female Nephile dispose of their captured 
prey differs substantially from that pursued by the smaller_members of the 
tribe. The Spider class is, as a rule, represented as being of entirely suctorial 
habits, feeding simply on the abstracted juices of their winged victims. In the 
species now under consideration, large flies and even beetles taken in the web 
were, as observed by the writer on several occasions, literally chewed up and 
swallowed in their entirety. The irony of fate inseparable from greatness is aptly 
illustrated in the specimen here figured. This Spider is itself a victim to a 
minute blood-sucking sand-fly, apparently belonging to the genus Simulium. One of 
these parasites, with immersed rostrum and distended body, may be observed adherent 
to the right-hand margin of the Nephila’s abdomen as presented to the reader. 
Several of the little burnished-silver Argyrodes are, as were seen in life, stationed” 
at various points of the Nephila’s web here delineated. As previously mentioned, 
these diminutive commensal spiders add their slender lines, and devour those 
smaller flies taken in their host’s snares which are beneath his, or more correctly 
her, august notice. In this manner they also probably fulfil a useful function, and 
repay their host’s hospitality by preying upon the minute parasitic sand-flies by 
which the larger Arachnids are prone to being persecuted. 
Much more might be written concerning the Australian Arachnida. The 
foregoing notes will, however, suffice to indicate how wide and interesting a field 
