MR.  W.  S.  MACLEAY  ON  THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MYGALE.  191 
author  had  just  described,  but  to  another  large  and  beautifully  coloured  genus  of 
Spider,  now  called  Nephila. 
Maria  Sibylla  Merian,  thirty  or  forty  years  later,  read  that  Rochefort's  large  brown 
Spider  catches  small  birds  in  its  web,  and  jumping  at  the  conclusion  that  it  would  not 
catch  them  without  an  ulterior  object,  she  accordingly,  in  her  work  '  De  Generatione 
et  Metamorphosibus  Insectorum  Surinamensium',  has,  if  I  recollect  right,  most  obli- 
gingly figured  from  her  imagination  an  enormous  Mygale  in  the  very  act  of  ungraciously 
devouring  a  Humming-bird^  !  Hence  Linnseus  called  it  Aranea  avicularia;  hence,  too, 
our  ignorant  bookmakers  sometimes  devote  a  popularly  pathetic  paragraph  and  expla- 
natory wood-cut  to  the  horrors  of  the  hird-catching  Spider. 
Now  the  genus  Mygale,  of  which  several  and  enormous  species  exist  in  Cuba,  cannot 
possibly  catch  birds,  because  it  spins  no  net ;  because  it  lives  during  the  day  in  holes 
under  stones 2,  or  in  tubes  sometimes  three  feet  deep  in  the  earth,  which  generally  open 
under  stones,  and  w^here  certainly  no  Humming -bird  can  get  at  it ;  and  finally,  because 
Mygale  is  itself  too  inactive  in  its  motions,  and  humbly  keeps  too  close  to  its  mother 
earth  to  be  able  to  get  near  a  Humming-bird,  which,  as  far  as  I  have  seen,  never  perches 
except  on  branches.  The  true  food  of  this  Spider  I  have  found  from  the  debris  in  its 
tubes  to  be  luli,  Porcelliones,  subterranean  Acheta,  and  those  large  sluggish  Cockroaches 
which  swarm  under  almost  every  stone.  So  far  from  making  a  geometrical  web  like 
the  crafty  Epeiridce,  Mygale  only  spins  at  times  a  fine  white  silken  tapestry  to  line  its 
tube  withal,  and  to  keep  itself  dry.  In  rainy  weather,  indeed,  I  have  noticed  the  orifice 
of  this  tube,  if  not  opening  under  a  stone,  to  be  sometimes  closed  by  an  irregular 
cobweb. 
'  It  is  singular  with  what  tenacity  even  the  best  naturalists  will  adhere  to  any  story  that  has  a  touch  of  the 
marvellous.  In  the  last  edition  of  Cuvier's  '  Rfegne  Animal',  the  fable  of  a  Spider  catching  birds  retains  its 
place,  although  Messrs.  Kirby  and  Spence  had  long  referred  to  a  work  of  M.  LangsdorfF,  in  which  it  is  denied. 
See  '  Introduction  to  Entomology',  vol.  i.  p.  424.  By  the  way,  in  the  same  page  of  the  '  Introduction',  Aranea 
venatoria  is  said  to  construct  in  the  ground  a  singular  cavity.  The  Ar.  venatoria  of  Linnaeus  is  very  common 
in  Cuba,  and  does  no  such  thing.  Messrs.  Kirby  and  Spence  no  doubt,  therefore,  allude  to  the  Ar.  venatoria  of 
Fabricius,  which  is  a  Mygale.  The  work  of  M.  LangsdorfF  mentioned  by  Messrs.  Kirby  and  Spence,  is  doubt- 
less the  '  Bemerkungen  auf  einer  Reise  um  die  Welt',  which,  however,  I  only  know  by  an  extract  given  in 
Germar's  '  Magazin  der  Entomologie',  p.  183.  Here  M.  LangsdorfF  unequivocally  declares  that  the  Vogelspinne 
of  Brazil  does  not  catch  Humming-birds,  and  that  this  vulgar  story  is  altogether  false.  He  truly  says,  "Diese 
Spinne  macht  kein  gewebe,  sondem  lebt  bestandig  unter  die  erde  in  lochern." 
®  The  holes  of  the  Mygale  avicularia  are  very  common  in  my  garden,  and  in  external  appearance  exactly  like 
what  in  the  gardens  of  England  are  called  toad-holes.  The  Mygale  is  of  the  greatest  use  to  me,  as  it  feeds  on 
the  Acheta,  Gryllotalpa:,  Blatta,  and  other  subterranean  Orthoptera  that  are  the  greatest  plagues  of  the  horti- 
culturist in  warm  countries.  If  Myg.  avicularia  does  not  catch  birds,  birds,  however,  will  sometimes  catch  it. 
I  had  once  in  my  garden  a  tame  Cao  (Corvus  Jamaicensis) ,  which  was  skilfully  expert  in  turning  these  Spiders 
up  out  of  the  soil,  and  still  more  scientifically  tasty  in  his  mode  of  sucking  the  entire  juice  out  of  their  body. 
He  did  not,  however,  devour  them.  , 
