470 



ARTICULATA. 



[Chap. XIII. 



An officer in the East India Company's Service in a 

 communication to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, describes 

 the gigantic web of a black and red spider six inches in 

 diameter, (his description of which, both in colour and 

 size, seems to point to some species closely allied to 

 the Olios Taprobanius,) which he saw near Monghyr 

 on the Granges ; in this web " a bird was entangled, and 

 the young spiders, eight in number, and entirely of a 

 brick red colour, were feeding on the carcase. 2 



The voracious Galeodes has not yet been noticed in 

 Ceylon ; but its carnivorous propensities are well known 

 in those parts of Hindustan, where it is found, and 

 where it lives upon crickets, coleoptera, and other 

 insects, as well as small lizards and birds. This 66 tiger of 

 the insect world," as it has aptly been designated by a 

 gentleman who was a witness to its ferocity 3 , was seen 

 to attack a young sparrow half grown, and seize it by 

 the thigh, which it sawed through. The " savage then 

 caught the bird by the throat, and put an end to its 

 sufferings by cutting off its head." " On another occa- 

 sion," says the same authority, (e Dr. Baddeley confined 

 one of these spiders under a glass wall-shade with two 

 young musk-rats (Sorex Indicus), both of which it 

 destroyed." It must be added, however, that neither in 

 the instance of the bird, of the lizard, or the rats, did 

 the galeodes devour its prey after killing it. 



covered bodies, with projecting spines, arching obliquely backwards. 



knobs arranged in pairs. In habit These abnormal kinds are not so 



these anomalous-looking Epeiridce handsomely coloured as the smaller 



appear to differ in no respect from species of typical form. 



the rest of the family, waylaying 1 Capt. Sherwill. 



their prey in similar situations and 2 Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1850, 



in the same manner. vol. xix. p. 475. 



Another very singular subgenus, 3 Capt. Hutton. See a paper 



met with in Ceylon, is distinguished on the Galeodes vorax in the 



by the abdomen being dilated be- Journal of the Asiatic Society of 



hind, and armed with two long Bengal, vol. xi. Part n. p. 860. 



