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SUPPLEMENT 
with their mandibles : they pierce them with the crooks with 
which they are armed, and suck them. They also engage 
together in mortal combat, and constantly devour their con- 
similars. 
The long legs with which nature has provided them not only 
serve the purpose of enabling them to walk with very great faci- 
lity, but also to escape from the pursuit of their enemies, and to 
advertise them of their presence. In a state of repose, placed 
upon a wall, or on the trunk of a tree, the phalangium extends 
its feet circularly around its body. As they occupy a consi- 
derable space, if an animal touches at one of its parts, the 
phalangium places itself immediately on its feet, which form 
so many arcades, under which the animal passes, if it be 
small. Should this stratagem not succeed, the arachnid leaps 
to the ground, and soon escapes. It frequently escapes in the 
same manner from the hands of the observer, but seldom with- 
out leaving between the fingers which has seized it one or more 
of its feet, which will continue to move for hours together, fold- 
ing and unfolding alternately. This phenomenon takes place 
because each foot is a hollow tube, which contains in the whole 
length of its cavity a sort of very fine tendinous thread, on 
which the air acts, when the foot is detached from the trunk. 
Geoffroy, having found a phalangium with the third foot much 
shorter than the others, presumes that this foot had replaced 
one that was lost, as it happens to crabs and lobsters in a 
similar predicament. But the shortness of life in the phalan- 
gium militates against this conjecture. 
In spring only small phalangia are found, which proceed 
from the eggs deposited the preceding autumn. It is hardly 
until towards the end of summer that they have acquired their 
full growth, and then they couple. Sometimes this does not 
occur without a combat on the part of the males, and some 
resistance on that of the female. After this, the female 
