FOOD OF INSECTS. 



357 



you will have an idea of the general manners of the whole 

 race of spiders.^ 



The artificers of that tribe which Walckenaer has named 

 vagrants are various and singular. Several species conceal 

 themselves in a little cell formed of the rolled up leaf of a 

 plant, and thence dart upon any insect which chances to pass ; 

 while others select for their place of ambush a hole in a wall, 

 or lurk behind a stone, or in the bark of a tree. Aranea ealy- 

 cina L. more ingeniously places herself at the bottom of the 

 calyx of a dead flower, and pounces upon the unwary flies 

 that come in search of honey ; and A. arundinacea buries 

 herself in the thick panicle of a reed, and seizes the luckless 

 visiters enticed to rest upon her silvery concealment. Many 

 of this tribe at times quit their habitations, 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 blossom of the hawthorn or on the flowers of umbel- 

 liferous plants, and is thus eflectually concealed by the simi- 

 larity of colour. 



Foremost amongst the spiders comprehended by Walcke- 

 naer under the general name of hunters, which search after 

 and openly seize their prey, must be enumerated the mon- 

 strous Mygale avicularia, at least two inches long, and the 

 expansion of whose feet has been sometimes found to extend 

 nearly a foot wide, which takes up its abode in the woods of 

 South America, and has been reputed by Madame Merian to 

 seize and devour even small birds ; but this is wholly denied 

 by Langsdorf, who declares that it eats only insects ^ ; a 

 conclusion which is confirmed by Mr. W. S. MacLeay from 

 his own observations on this species, which was very common 

 in his garden in Cuba, and did him great service by devouring 

 the Juli, AchetcB, cockroaches, &c., which are so injurious 

 there to cultivated vegetables. It issues from its hole at 

 night only (never in the day time) to attack these insects ; 

 and so far from having any bird-catching propensities, Mr. 



^ 1 Some slight alterations in M. Walckenaer's original divisions, but which 

 need not be here particularised, have been made in his later works on spiders. 

 2 Bermerkungen auf einer Reise uni die Welt. i. 63. 



A A 3 



