ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



797 





NEST OF SOUTH AMERICAN SPIDER. 

 The spider's outlines are visible through the silk tube. 



GIANT CENTIPEDE. 

 An eleven-inch specimen, from Trinidad. 



that unless provided with means of hiding, thev 

 will not feed. Our examples are generally 

 secreting themselves under the flat stones of their 

 cage. When disturbed they move about in live- 

 ly fashion, holding the sting-tipped tail well ele- 

 vated. Unlike the centipede, the venom is 

 sprayed about the wound. The curved sting has 

 no orifice at its tip, and is intended to be used 

 only as a lacerating organ. The virus is sprayed 

 from pores at its base. Though exceedingly 

 poisonous, the sting of the larger New World 

 scorpions cannot be rated as actually dangerous 

 to man. Our specimens come from Cuba. They 

 are about two and a half inches long, and of a 

 dull reddish hue. Their food consists of soft- 

 bodied insect larvae. 



Through unusual vigor displayed by our col- 

 lectors, we are rather too elaborately supplied 

 with huge spiders of the genus Mygale, com- 

 monly known, though not quite appropriately, 

 as the Bird-Killing Spiders. Three species are 

 on exhibition. Altogether there are twenty-two 

 specimens, which were collected in Dutch 

 Guiana, Trinidad and Texas. Owing to their 

 quarrelsome dispositions and cannibalistic appe- 

 tites, it is impossible to keep more than a pair 

 in a cage. In caging these examples we found 

 the sexes evenly divided; and our big spiders 



occupy a series of eleven cages. Despite the 

 cage space thus consumed, there is here an in- 

 teresting study of the tube-building skill of a 

 number of the specimens, particularly those 

 from South America. In a wild state these big 

 spiders live in holes in decaying trees, or in 

 burrows in soft ground, lining their homes with 

 a sheet of gleaming silk. To provide them with 

 anything approaching wild conditions would 

 mean that the spider would immediately retire 

 from view. In their bare cages these specimens 

 construct a silk tunnel in one corner, from the 

 top to the bottom of the cage. The wall of this 

 shelter is exquisitely white, and so tough it is 

 difficult to tear it with one's fingers. 



Our big spiders are alert, but not particularly 

 vicious. They show marked individuality as re- 

 gards their temper. Some of them pay little 

 attention to the operation of cleaning their cage, 

 while a few are ugly enough to jump at a keep- 

 er's hand. Their powerful fangs are provided 

 with an orifice at the tip for the ejection of 

 venom, — alike in structure to the virus-conduct- 

 ing weapons of the centipede, and of serpents. 

 Small mammals quickly succumb to the bites of 

 these spiders, but we find their preference is for 

 insect prey. Their bites are alleged to be highly 

 dangerous to man. R. L. D. 



