356 
NEW ARANEIDiE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, 
believe that a spider would touch them. My garden, I repeat, is 
full of these NephiloR in autumn, and I tried to regale one of them 
with a small species of Sphcerio dactylics by putting it into 
her net. The spider on feeling the threads vibrate with the 
struggles of the lizard instantly approached and enveloped it in 
her web. As soon, however, as it was thus disabled, my Nephila / 
seemed to become aware of her mistake, and losing no time in 
cutting the lines, allowed her prisoner to fall to the ground." 
This conclusion, however, Mr. Macleay felt called upon six years 
later to withdraw, for in a letter to W. E. Shuckard, Esq.,* dated 
Sydney, 7th April, 1840, he stated that: — "In the vicinity of 
Sydney he had met with a true bird-catching spider, he having 
himself found one of the Epeiridce actually devouring one of the 
young of the Zosterops that had recently flown from the nest; and 
which is not a solitary instance, as his father, A. Macleay, Esq., 
had previously observed a similar fact." 
It is abundantly clear from the foregoing that the snares of 
certain spiders arrest the young of certain birds, as also those of 
a weak wing-power, but the author is decidedly of opinion that 
the spiders in question do not obtain or receive nourishment from 
their ornithological victims. The webs are not set with the object 
of catching any such game. Each snare is placed in its position 
by the unerring instinct of the spider, simply because the situation 
is such as will assure abundance of food in the shape of insects, 
and it is merely an accident when a bird becomes ensnared in the 
toils. 
I do not deny that a Nephila has been observed with its fangs 
plunged in the body of an ensnared bird, but that is not evidence 
ipso facto that it was making a meal. It is more than likely, 
indeed, that it attacks the bird, when it can safely do so, for the 
purpose of injecting its poison, thus hastening death, and prevent- 
ing the victim from too seriously injuring its web. Moreover, it 
must be noted that when any insect becomes entangled in the web 
of a Nephila the spider rushes upon the intruder, and plunging 
Lardner's " Cabinet Cyclopsedia," p. 382. 
