216 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



wliere the sail being rather more exciting than pleasant I used to 

 clutch my seat with a nervous grip till they were safely passed. 

 All along the river's course every new bend presented us with 

 varying pictures — quiet stretches of smooth black water over- 

 hung with drooping trees, scenes of village life, and green 

 cultivated fields. 



Ten miles down, the Lintang merged in the deep broad 

 Musi, along which we glided rapidly with a delightful motion 

 to the village of Lampar, which looked so promising a field 

 that I was induced to pitch camp for a time there to prosecute 

 my botanical work. 



While here I found a second specimen of that curious spider 

 (Ornithosoafoides decipiens) which I had discovered in Java. 

 One day when my boys were procuring for me from a high tree 

 some botanical specimens, I was rather dreamily looking on 

 the shrubs before me during the moments of waiting, when I 

 became conscious of my eyes resting on a leaf marked with the 

 excreta of a bird. " How strange it is that I have never found 

 another specimen of that curious spider I got two years ago in 

 Java, which simulated a mark just like this ! " So thinking, I 

 plucked the leaf by its petiole, and looked half listlessly at it, 

 mentally remarking how very cleverly that other spider had 

 copied nature, when to my delighted surprise I found that I 

 had actually a second specimen in my hand ; but the imitation 

 was so exquisite that I really did not perceive how matters 

 stood for some moments. The spider never moved while I was 

 plucking and twisting the leaf, and it was only after I placed 

 the tip of my finger on it that I observed that it was lying on 

 its back, when with the rapidest motion, but without any 

 perceptible displacement of itself it flashed its falces into 

 my flesh. I have already described the habits of this spider 

 at page 63. It was extremely interesting to find again, 

 evidently as a constant habit, that the thin web film had been 

 drawn out as if to represent some of. the fluid portion of 

 the excreta arrested in a drop before it had altogether run 

 to the margin of the sloping leaf. There is no doubt that 

 the spider must have acquired this mimicking habit by natural 

 selection ; yet it is difficult to explain how these minutiae, 

 which are not constant or essential in the model, have come 

 to be so accurately copied ; one cannot believe that it would 



