THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 27 
since its inmates first found their way to the Zoo, has 
never failed to excite the utmost interest and curiosity. 
On the floor of the box, partly sheltered by a few 
green plants, are ten or a dozen gold buttons, with a 
red-gold centre, on a lighter gold setting, edged by a 
round, semi-transparent rim. If watched attentively, 
the buttons presently move about on invisible legs, 
and perhaps one suddenly splits, puts out a pair of 
wings, and flies. These astonishing beetles, which are 
at present unnamed, are from Ceylon. Above, they 
exactly resemble an embossed gold sleeve-button, with 
a rim of yellow talc. Laid on their backs, the under- 
side of a golden beetle appears, surrounded with the 
same semi-transparent rim. Trap-door spiders also 
flourish in the Insect House, and have made several 
caves, with most ingenious doors, in a large piece of 
rotten wood with rugged lichen-covered bark. The 
doors are quite irregular in shape, made to fit the 
surface of the hole in which the spider lives, and are 
of all sizes, from that of a walnut-shell to a pea. The 
door exactly fits the orifice, however irregular its 
shape, and is so cleverly covered with pieces of wood 
and lichen woven into the fabric, that it exactly 
resembles the surrounding bark; and even a prying 
tit might omit to probe it with its bill. 
The one hideous and repulsive creature in this good 
company is the great tarantula spider. It is like a 
long-legged, hairy crab, quite seven inches from claw 
to claw, with enormous brown poison fangs like a 
beak. Two of these spiders, discovered in a tent at 
