Arachnida. 1219 



have only seen this from the stomach of fishes ; where usually it has sustained some 

 injury, and most commonly the loss of some of the limbs. — Jonathan Couch; 

 Polperro, November , 1845. 



Exotic Spiders imported in dye-wood, fyc. — I have before me two beautiful spiders, 

 of the genus My gale, which I obtained in September last in the hold of a vessel laden 

 with log-wood from St. Domingo. They measure upwards of three inches, in extreme 

 length, and the span of the fourth pair of legs is nearly six inches. The colours are 

 very beautiful ; the thorax is a rich carmine, and the legs a fine purple, the abdomen 

 nearly black, covered with a thick down, interspersed with longer hairs, which are gray- 

 ish at the extremities. The legs are very hairy, and armed with numerous sharp 

 spines, which the creatures have the power of erecting, in order to grasp their prey more 

 firmly. I kept one alive for upwards of a month, when it died. It eat a cockroach 

 one night, leaving merely fragments of skin rolled together in a ball of web. After- 

 wards, though supplied with cockroaches, flies, and other insects, it could not 

 be induced to feed. Its movements were not rapid, but very graceful, walking on its 

 " tiptoes '' as it were. The hooks at the end of the tarsi were retractile, and when lying 

 back, completely concealed by the tufts of hair. Several species of tropical Arachnida, 

 &c, and occasionally snakes, are found in the dye-wood vessels, concealed in the clefts 

 of the wood, I found in the same ship a fine specimen of Theliphonus caudatus, 

 (Lat.) which survived a few days, and was very savage, and two real Tarantulas 

 (Phryni), which when I took them out of the box, I found fastened on a poor 

 spider; in the fight for which, they had uufortunately each lost one of the remarkable 

 antenna-like anterior tarsi. — George Wolley ; 9, Cambridge Street, Liverpool, December 

 2nd, 1845. 



Remarkable habits of an Austrulian Spider. — In the middle of last April I was 

 particularly struck with the singular habits of a spider, which had constructed his web 

 between a high fence and the gable end of my house ; these being about ten yards 

 from each other, and the web being about midway between them. As soon as the web 

 was finished the spider procured a leaf, and having rolled it up into the form of 

 an extinguisher, he fixed it in the very centre of the web with the point upwards. In 

 this domicile he remained at rest until some prey was entangled in the web, when 

 he immediately pounced upon it and conveyed it into his mansion to be devoured. 

 Whether the object of this singular contrivance was protection from the weather or 

 concealment from his prey, or both combined, I am unable to say, but it struck me as 

 very ingenious. Had the domicile been placed at the extremity of the lines the 

 spider would have had at least five yards of line to traverse before reaching the centre 

 of the web, and of course the same distance to return with his prey. One wet and 

 windy night spider and all disappeared. The perusal of ' The Zoologist ' as it arrives 

 serves to " whet my almost blunted purpose " of collecting insects and contributing to 

 its pages. — Alfred Lambert ; 249, Pitt Street, Sydney, June 20th, 1845. 



[I need scarcely remark on the pleasure it gave me to receive a contribution from a 

 gentleman, who during his residence in this country was one of our best and most accu- 

 rate observers. His papers in ' The Entomologist' will be remembered with pleasure 

 by all my subscribers, but he left England almost immediately after the recommence- 

 ment of the work under its present title, having contributed only two short papers to its 

 pages (Zool. 35 and 95.)— E. Newman.'] 



