ON ARACHNIDA. 
457 
extremely dreaded in Antilles, and in South America, where 
they are called craft-spiders. 
The habits of all these mygales are probably the same, and 
we shall therefore present here what authors have collected 
on the subject, though as far as actual observation is concerned, 
they principally apply to the species called avicularia . 
That which Pison, in his Natural history of Brazil, names 
nhamdu , or nhamdu-guagu (great spider) is a species very 
much akin to avicularia . According to him, it nidificates, 
after the manner of birds, in the rubbish and cavities of old 
and decaying trees. It lives a very long time, and can sup- 
port an extreme degree of abstinence. Some individuals, 
which the author had shut up in boxes, have lived there some 
months without any sort of nourishment. This species con- 
structs, though but seldom, with the two projecting spinnerets, 
which it carries at the anus, webs, similar, as he says, in dis- 
position to those made by the other spiders. But the gene- 
rality of this assertion, and the description which this author 
gives of the webs of these mygales, would seem to prove, that 
he does not speak ex visit , but abandons himself to argument 
and conjecture. Such, again, is the case when on the subject 
of the coupling of these animals, he advances that their bodies 
are opposed one to the other ( aversis dumb us). The females 
carry their eggs under the belly. The talons of their mandi- 
bles are enchased in gold, to serve as tooth -picks, and are 
even supposed to be an excellent odontalgic. Not only the 
pricking of these animals, but the liquor which is distilled 
from their mouths, and even, it is reported, their hairs, are 
reputed venomous. The part of the body which the animal 
has wounded, grows benumbed, livid, and blackisli, swells 
considerably, and the malady proceeds, according to Pison, 
to such an extent as to prove incurable. The wound is 
cauterized ; but the best antidote, as the same author tells us, 
is furnished by that preparation of the crab, which he names 
