192         MR.  W.  S.  MACLEAY  ON  THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  MYGALE. 
Under  stones  these  animals  may  always  be  detected,  but  never  during  the  day  in  the 
open  air'.  At  night,  indeed,  they  sally  forth  to  enjoy  an  interesting  promenade,  more 
particularly  before  rain,  when  the  electrical  state  of  the  atmosphere  seems  to  put  Scor- 
pions and  all  other  Arachnida  in  motion.  At  such  periods  Mygale,  or,  as  the  Spaniards 
termit,theAra'fiapeluda,  crawls  slowly  into  the  houses, — an  unwelcome  guest, — although 
from  its  inactivity,  and  its  unguiform  antenna;  being  bent  downwards,  it  is  easily  and 
without  danger  crushed.  It  is  said,  however,  that  the  bite  of  the  Arafia  peluda  is  worse 
than  the  sting  of  the  Alacran  or  Scorpion :  it  may  be  so  ;  but  I  can  scarcely  conceive 
how  any  one  should  have  known  the  fact,  unless  he  had  been  curious  enough  to  re- 
solve on  being  bitten.  In  that  case,  indeed,  I  can  well  imagine  that  the  strong  sharp 
ungues'^  which  terminate  the  antennee  may  have  made  a  severe  wound,  even  had  the 
animal  not  the  power,  which  it  possesses,  of  inserting  venom  whenever  it  bites.  Never- 
theless, as  to  these  immense  Spiders, — the  expansion  of  whose  feet  has  been  sometimes 
found  to  extend  nearly  a  foot  wide, — killing  Humming-birds,  it  is  not  merely,  I  repeat, 
that  they  possess  no  net  or  other  means  for  catching  them,  but  they  will  not  even  de- 
vour them  when  caught ;  for  I  once  placed  a  live  Humming-bird^  and  a  small  Anolis  in 
the  tube  of  a  Mygale,  and  it  deserted  it,  leaving  my  vertebrated  animals  untouched. 
So  much  for  the  fidelity  of  that  pencil  whose  monstrous  and  misshapen  figures  have 
been  reconciled  often  to  form  and  grace,  merely  by  our  due  distance  from  Surinam. 
As  the  above  is  one  instance  among  a  thousand,  I  repeat  that  until  some  Surinam  na- 
turalist shall  prove  where  our  good  lady  is  true,  I  shall  always  most  un gallantly  beheve 
her  to  be  the  contrary. 
One  word,  however,  as  to  bird-catching  Spiders.  The  largest  Spiders  that  make  a 
geometrical  net  belong  to  the  genus  Nephila  ;  and  the  largest  Nephila  that  I  have  seen 
in  the  West  Indies  is  the  elegant  Neph.  clavipes,  or  Epeira  clavipes  of  Latreille.  This 
species  is  common  in  gardens,  suspended  to  trees  in  the  centre  of  a  web,  the  mathe- 
'  Surely  M.  LangsdoriF,  notwithstanding  his  assertion  of  having  accurately  studied  the  economy  of  these 
animals,  is  quite  wrong  in  describing  them  to  leave  their  holes,  "  nur  bei  sehr  warm  scheinender  sonne,  und 
nicht  weiter  als  hochstens  auf  einen  schritt  entfemung."  So  far  from  enjoying  a  warm  sunny  day,  the  Mt^gale 
is  truly  nocturnal,  and  wanders  by  night  great  distances.  It  is  no  doubt  the  aspect  of  this  insect, — so  little 
lovely, — which  has  fated  it  always  to  be  incorrectly  observed.  When  M.  LangsdoriF  asked  the  people  of  Brazil 
if  the  Caranguexeira — for  such  it  seems  is  the  terrific  name  of  our  poor  Spider  in  that  country — fed  on  Hum- 
ming-birds,  they  answered  him  with  bursts  of  laughter,  that  it  only  gratified  its  maw  with  large  Flies,  Ants, 
Bees,  Wasps,  Beetles,  &c.,  an  answer  which  our  traveller  afterwards,  as  he  says,  found  the  truth  of  by  personal 
experience.  This  ought,  no  doubt,  to  be  quite  conclusive  evidence ;  but  nevertheless  I  must  beg  leave  still  to 
doubt  that  any  Mygale  can  catch  winged  Hymenoptera.  M.  Langsdorff,  I  have  no  doubt,  ascertained  that  they 
devoured  Ants  and  Beetles,  and  the  rest,  I  suspect,  must  merely  be  attributed  to  a  loose  mode  of  expressing 
himself. 
*  So  far  back  as  the  time  of  Rochefort  these  ungues  were  mounted  in  gold  and  used  as  tooth -picks,  being  sup- 
posed, as  he  says,  to  possess  a  peculiar  virtue  in  preventing  all  diseases  of  the  teeth. 
3  A  young  Trochilus  pectoralis,  Lath.,  and  a  young  Anolius  rhodolcEtnus,  Bell. 
