424 FOOD OF INSECTS. 



dinacea buries herself in the thick panicle of a reed, and 

 seizes the luckless visitors enticed to rest upon her silvery 

 concealment. Many of this tribe at times quit their ha- 

 bitations, and by various stratagems contrive to come 

 within reach of their prey, as by pretending to be dead, 

 hiding themselves behind any slight projection, &c. A 

 white species I have often observed squatted in the blos- 

 som of the hawthorn or on the flowers of umbelliferous 

 plants, and is thus effectually concealed by the similarity 

 of colour. 



Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by 

 Walckenaer under the general name of hunters, which 

 search after and openly seize their prey, must be enume- 

 rated the monstrous A. avicularia, at least two inches 

 long, which takes up its abode in the woods of South 

 America, and has been reputed to seize and devour even 

 small birds ; but this is wholly denied by Langsdorf, who 

 declares that it eats only insects a . This species, as well 

 as another tropical one, A. venatoria, the European A. 

 cementaria, and many others, construct in the ground 

 very singular cylindrical cavities, and therein carry and 

 . devour their prey. These, being rather the habitations 

 of insects than snares, I shall describe in a subsequent 

 letter. A. saccata, the species whose affection for its 

 young I have before detailed, and not a few others of the 

 same family, common in this country, in like manner 

 seize their prey openly, and when caught carry it to little 

 inartificial cavities under stones. A.Jimbriata, L. hunts 

 along the margins of pools ; and Lycosa piratica of 



3 Bemerkungen aufeiner Rcisc urn die Welt, u 63, 



