VIII 
CR US TA CEA 
171 
this tribe, as that of diving is of the Argyroneta. We may 
then reject Latreille’s supposition, that the gossamer owes its 
origin indifferently to the young of several genera of spiders : 
although, as we have seen, the young of other spiders do possess 
the power of performing aerial voyages. 1 
During our different passages south of the Plata, I often 
towed astern a net made of bunting, and thus caught many 
curious animals. Of Crustacea there were many strange and 
undescribed genera. One, which in some respects is allied to 
the Notopods (or those crabs which have their posterior legs 
placed almost on their backs, for the purpose of adhering to 
the under side of rocks), is very remarkable from the structure 
of its hind pair of legs. The penultimate joint, instead of 
terminating in a simple claw, ends in three bristle-like 
appendages of dissimilar lengths-—-the longest equalling that of 
the entire leg. These claws are very thin, and are serrated 
with the finest teeth, directed backwards: their curved 
extremities are flattened, and on this part five most minute cups 
are placed which seem to act in the same manner as the suckers 
on the arms of the cuttle-fish. As the animal lives in the open 
sea, and probably wants a place of rest, I suppose this beautiful 
and most anomalous structure is adapted to take hold of float¬ 
ing marine animals. 
In deep water, far from the land, the number of living 
creatures is extremely small : south of the latitude 35 0 , I never 
succeeded in catching anything besides some beroe, and a few 
species of minute entomostracous Crustacea. In shoaler water, 
at the distance of a few miles from the coast, very many kinds 
of Crustacea and some other animals are numerous, but only 
during the night. Between latitudes 56° and 5 7 0 south of 
Cape Horn, the net was put astern several times ; it never, 
however, brought up anything besides a few of two extremely 
minute species of Entomostraca. Yet whales and seals, petrels 
and albatross, are exceedingly abundant throughout this part 
of the ocean. It has always been a mystery to me on what 
the albatross, which lives far from the shore, can subsist ; I 
presume that, like the condor, it is able to fast long ; and that 
one good feast on the carcass of a putrid whale lasts for a long 
1 Mr. Blackwall, in his Researches in Zoology , has many excellent observations 
on the habits of spiders. 
