64 -' 
THE SXARE OF THE GIANT WOOD SVTDER[NEPHILA MACULATA) 
BY 
Captain R. W. G. Hingston, I.M.S. 
PART I. 
{With 2 text figures). 
Some of my earliest observations in natural science were given to tbe won- 
derful work of the spiders that weave geometrical snares. It was in a beauti- 
ful and secluded valley of the Himalaya, and the spider which disclosed the 
secrets of the architecture was the humble and insignificant species, the Araneus 
nauticiis.* 
Eight years have passed since these investigations were made, and many a 
time have I reviewed the work and followed the stages of the architecture again. 
Often of an evening, when chance has offered, I have watched the exquisite 
fabric assume its geometrical beauty and shape ; I have noticed how the different 
species possesses each its own special peculiarities and ways, yet for a long time 
I met with none which made any wide or important deviation from the main 
principles originally observed. But fortune in the end will always favour those 
who watch and wait. At length the time arrived when another of the Epeiridae 
displayed her workmanship, and revealed a succession of varied secrets that 
satisfied my highest hojres. 
■ Giant Wood Spider {N. maculata). 
(From the Fauna of British India ( Arachnida). 
The species is none other than the Nephila maculata ; in this vast country 
the most handsome and most powerful of its kind. 
How very different from the insignificant Araneus is this great conspicuous 
giant of the woods. The Araneus is a small and globular spider, a little brown 
species with stumpy legs, only one quarter to one half an inch in length. The 
Nephila is an elongated monster, variegated in brilliant colour, with long and 
slender limbs and four to six times as large. Equally wide is the difference 
between their snares. Both are of the same geometrical pattern ; but that of 
the Araneus is a fragile structure, on an average some ten to twelve inches 
in width; while the Nephila spreads out a strong sheet of silk with a diameter of 
five feet. I found the Araneus over the streams and pools that nestle amidst 
the rocky glens. I come on the Nephila inmove gloomy haunts. She is a 
resident of the dense and leafy jungle, a true inhabitant of the woods. 
I must briefly describe the splendid architect herself. It is of course the 
female which is responsible for the work. In front her head and thorax are welded 
* The architecture has been fully described in “ A Naturalist in Himalaya.” 
