468 
AKTICULATA. 
[Chap. XIII. 
Some years later, however, the same writer felt it 
incumbent on him to qualify this hasty conclusion l j 
in consequence of having seen at Sydney an enormous 
spicier, the Epeira diadema, in the act of sucking the 
juices of a bird (the Zosterops dorsalis of Vigors and 
Horsfield), which it had caught in the meshes of its 
geometrical net. This circumstance, however, did not 
in his opinion affect the case of the Mygale ; and even 
as regards the Epeira, Mr. MacLeay, who witnessed the 
occurrence, was inclined to believe the instance to be 
accidental and exceptional; " an exception indeed so rare, 
that no other person had ever witnessed the fact." 
Subsequent observation has, however, served to sustain 
the story of Madame Merian. 2 Baron Walckenaer and 
Latreille both corroborated it by other authorities ; and 
M. Moreau da Jonnes, who studied the habits of the 
Mygale in Martinique, says it hunts far and wide in 
search of its prey, conceals itself beneath leaves for the 
purpose of surprising them, and climbs the branches of 
trees to devour the young of the humming bird, and of 
the Gerthia flaveola. As to its mode of attack, M. 
Jonnes says that when it throws itself on its victim it 
clings to it by the double hooks of its tarsi, and strives 
to reach the back of the head, to insert its jaws between 
the skull and the vertebrae. 3 
1 See Ann. and Mag. of Nat. by a curious movement of the 
Hist, for 1842, vol. viii. p. 324. large grayish brown Mygale on the 
2 See authorities quoted by Mr. trunk of a vast tree : it was close 
Shtickakd in the Ann. and Mag. beneath a deep crevice or chink in 
of Nat. Hist. 1842, vol. viii. p. the tree, across which this species 
436, &c. weaves a dense web, at one end 
3 At a meeting of the Entomo- open for its exit and entrance. In 
logical Society, July 20, 1855, a the present instance the lower part 
paper was read by Mr. H. W. of the web was broken, and two 
Bates, who stated that in 1849 at small finches were entangled in 
Cameta in Brazil, he "was attracted its folds. The finch was about 
