356 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



driven into the wood, till, by that indiscernible pro- 

 gress, being arrived within the sphere of her reach, 

 she made a fatal leap, swift as lightning, upon the fly, 

 catching him in the poll, where she never quitted hold 

 till her belly was full, and then carried the remainder 

 home." 



One feels a little sceptical, however, when he adds, 

 " I have beheld them instructing their young ones how 

 to hunt, which they would sometimes discipline for not 

 well observing; but when any of the old ones did (as 

 sometimes) miss a leap, they would run out of the field 

 and hide themselves in their crannies, as ashamed, and 

 haply not to be seen abroad for four or five hours after ; 

 for so long have I watched the nature of this strange 

 insect, the contemplation of whose so wonderful 

 sagacity and address has amazed me ; nor do I find in 

 any chase whatsoever more cunning and stratagem 

 observed. I have found some of these spiders in my 

 garden, when the weather, towards spring, is very hut, 

 but they are nothing so eager in hunting as in Italy."* 



We have only to add to this lively narrative, that 

 the hunting-spider, when he leaps, takes good care 

 to provide against accidental falls by always swing- 

 ing himself from a good strong cable of silk, as 

 Swammerdam correctly states,t and which any body 

 may verify, as one of the small hunters (Salticus sce- 

 nicus), known by having its back striped with black 

 and white like a zebra, is very common in Britain. 



Mr. Weston, the editor of Bloomfield's Remains, 

 falls into a very singular mistake about hunting-spiders, 

 imagining them to be web-weaving ones which have 

 exhausted their materials, and which are therefore 

 compelled to hunt. In proof of this he gives an in- 

 stance which fell under his own observation \\ 



* Evelyn's Travels in Italy, 

 f Bonk of Nature, part i. p. 24. 

 I Bloomfield's Remains, vol. ii. p. 64, note. 



