SPIDERS. 561 



houses. Bates one day saw some Indian children with one 

 of these monsters secured by a curd round its waist, by which 

 they were leading- it about the house as they would a dog. 

 The hairs with which it is covered come off when touched, 

 and cause a peculiar and almost maddening irritation. This 

 is, however, probably owing to their being short and hard, 

 and thus getting into the fine creases of the skin, and not to 

 any poisonous quality residing in the hairs. These monstrous 

 spiders prey on lizards, small birds, and other diminutive 

 vertebrates. Their muscular power is very great. When 

 the creature is about to seize its prey, it fixes its hind-feet 

 firmly in the ground, and lifting up the front ones, darts them 

 forward, and fastens them with the double hooks which 

 terminate its feet between the cranium and the first ver- 

 tebra, thus preventing the possibility of their escaping. No- 

 thing will then tear it from its prey. When pressed by 

 hunger, it climbs at night the trees and shrubs in which 

 humming-birds and other small birds are perched, or have 

 built their nests, and springing on them, grasps them with its 

 powerful claws. It seizes the anolis, a kind of water-lizard, 

 in the same way. The fact of its seizing on birds, so long- 

 doubted, though asserted by Madame Marian, the French 

 naturalist, has been corroborated by M. Jonnes, her country- 

 man. He states that it spins no web to serve it as a dwell- 

 ing, but burrows and lies in ambush in the cliffs and hollow 

 ravines. It often travels to a considerable distance, and 

 conceals itself under leaves, thence to dart out on its prey ; or 

 it climbs along the branches of trees to surprise the humming- 

 birds and other small tree-creepers. Bates still further settles 

 the point. 



With regard to the habits of another species which does 



(379) 36 



