Chap. XIII.] 
SPIDEES. 
467 
discerned the other and stood still, the spider with his 
legs slightly bent and his body raised, the cockroach 
confronting him and directing his antennae with a rest- 
less undulation towards his enemy. The spider, by 
stealthy movements, approached to within a few inches 
and paused, both parties eyeing each other intently; 
then suddenly a rush, a scuffle, and both fell to the 
ground, when the blatta's wings closed, the spider seized 
it under the throat with his claws, and dragged it into 
a corner, when the action of his jaws was distinctly 
audible. Next morning Mr. Layard found that the 
soft parts of the body had been eaten, nothing but the 
head, thorax, and elytra remaining. 
But, in addition to minor and ignoble prey, the My gale 
rests under the imputation of seizing small birds and 
feasting on their blood. The author who first gave 
popular currency to this story was Madame Meeian, a 
zoological artist of the last century, many of whose 
drawings are still preserved in the Museums of St. Pe- 
tersburg, Holland, and England. In a work on the 
Insects of Surinam, published in 1705 1 , she figured the 
Mygale avicularia, in the act of devouring a humming 
bird. The accuracy of her statement has since been 
impugned 2 by a correspondent of the Zoological Society 
of London, on the ground that the mygale makes no 
net,.. but lives in recesses, to which no humming-bird 
would resort ; and hence, the writer somewhat illogically 
declares, that he " disbelieves the existence of any bird- 
catching spider." 
1 Dissertatio de Generatione et 
M&tamorphosibus Insectorum Suri- 
namensmm, Amst. 1701. Pol. 
2 By Mr. MacLeay in a paper 
communicated to the Zoological 
Society of London, Proo. 1834, p. 
12. 
H u 2 
