Cuap. XII.] SPIDERS. 469 
For my own part, no instance came to my knowledge 
in Ceylon of a mygale attacking a bird; but Purctvat, 
who wrote his account of the island in 1805, describes 
an enormous spider (possibly an Epeirid) thinly covered 
with hair which “ makes webs strong enough to entangle 
and hold even small birds that form its usual food.” } 
The fact of its living on millepeds, blatte, and 
crickets, is universally known; and a lady who lived at 
Marandahn, near Colombo, told me that she had, on 
one occasion, seen a little house-lizard (gecko) seized 
and devoured by one of these ugly spiders. 
Walckenaer has described a spider of large size, under 
the name of Olios Taprobanius, which is very common 
in Ceylon, and conspicuous from the fiery hue of the 
under surface, the remainder being covered with gray 
hair so short and fine that the body seems almost 
denuded. It spins a moderate-sized web, hung verti- 
cally between two sets of strong lines, stretched one 
above the other athwart the pathways. Some of the 
threads thus carried horizontally from tree to tree at a 
considerable height from the ground are so strong as to 
cause a painful check across the face when moving 
quickly against them; and more than once in riding I 
have had my hat lifted off my head by one of these 
cords.? 
the size of the common Siskin of 
Europe, and he judged the two to 
be male and female; one of them 
was quite dead, but secured in the 
broken web; the other was under 
the body of the spider, not quite 
dead, and was covered in parts 
with a filthy liquor or saliva 
exuded by the monster. “ The 
species of spider,” Mr. Bates says, 
“T cannot name; it is wholly of a 
gray brown colour, and clothed 
with coarse pile.” “If the My- 
gales,” he adds, “did not prey 
upon vertebrated animals, I do not 
see how they could find sufficient 
subsistence.”— The Zoologist, vol. 
xiii, p. 480. 
1 Percrvar’s Ceylon, p. 313, 
* Over the country generally are 
scattered species of Gasteracantha, 
remarkable for their firm shell- 
HH 3 
