not fail to furnish the student of zoology with
many strange illustrations of animal instinct
and ingenuity. Antonio Magliobecchi read
alternately books and beasts, and musing upon the
thoughts of man, and the ways of animals,
reached a green old age. His vast learning and
wonderful memory made his conversation very
interesting, and great personages did not ask
him to a corner of their tables, but waited upon
him in his cell—none the less that the first
response to their approaching footsteps when heard
upon his staircase, was sure to be the command
—" take care of my spiders,"

The spiders kept by the celebrated and celebade
Bibliophile and Arachaeorphile of Florence
seem to have been the common house-spiders.
Most students of common spiders keep them
alive in various ways; but it is less easy to
keep the most interesting and wonderful kinds;
the flying, leaping, skating, diving, and
tunneling spiders. Of these the diving spiders,
which live in bubbles under water, have I
believe been kept for months, and the tunneling
spiders for years. Some friends of mine kept
mygales, for years hoping to see them make their
tunnels. They fed them carefully, kept them
warm and supplied them with every material
necessary for making their tubular dwelling; but
it was all in vain; for, however well supplied
with clay and straw, earth and moss, the exiles
would neither build nests nor spin sheaths in
captivity.

The word Mygale is the Greek for a field-
mouse, and some learned man thought it would
do very well as the name of a subterranean spider.
The mygales are the largest spiders known. I
have seen some from the West Indies which
were as big as a spider crab. They have been
accused of catching small birds in their webs,
and, if their threads are strong enough, to snare
and hold the lovely little birds of hot climes—
most certainly they themselves, with their strong
claws and fangs, are able to complete the
assassinations which their webs begin. These spiders
have their mandibles, pincers, fangs, or falces
(the instruments are called by all these names),
articulated or jointed horizontally. Most of
them have hairy papillae upon their feet, which
enable them to walk upon smooth and
perpendicular surfaces. Accustomed to think of this
group of spiders as the inhabitants of tropical
climates, it will be a surprise to many intelligent
persons to learn that there is a species of
them which is British. They resemble each
other in as far as they live in tubes or tunnels
of the earth. In October, 1855, Mr. Joshua
Brown, of Cirencester, when on a visit to Hastings,
found the tunnel spider. Passing down a
lane with a high and steep sand-bank on each
side partially covered with grass and bushes, he
noticed on one of the banks which had a southern
aspect something like the cocoon of a moth
hanging down. On compressing it slightly,
it seemed to be quite empty. It then occurred
to him that it might be the nest of a spider.
Examining it more closely, he was surprised to
find that it descended into the bank, and appeared
to be firmly attached at the distal extremity.
He could not extract the first without
breaking it. His curiosity being now thoroughly
awakened, he went more cautiously to work
with the second specimen which he found,
removing the sand carefully with a long knife. At
a depth of nine inches he found the end of the
nest, and drew it out quite perfect. It was a
long silken sac. A hardish lump at the bottom
of the sac proved to be the spider. The next
specimen he found went much deeper, and
indeed so deep that he failed, after much trouble,
in getting it out at all. He tried many others,
sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing, in
getting them out entire. They vary greatly in
length, being apparently longer or shorter at
the different stages of the growth of the spider,
and some of them presenting obvious appearances
of lengthening. The usual length is about
nine inches, but some of them were much longer.
Their form is tubular, and their diameter three-
quarters of an inch, with a purse-like rounding
at one end. The sheath consists of closely
woven silk of a very fine quality, neat, clean,
and white, or whitish, within, and covered with
yellowish or brownish particles of sand without,
which seemingly soil the tube. The portion of
the tube visible on the bank is about a couple of
inches long, and is pendant and inflated. Darker
than the subterranean portion of the tube, it
corresponds in colour with the general surface
of the bank. One of the tubes being in a
collapsed state, the sides pressing together, with
the spider at one end, Mr. Brown was surprised
on opening the box to perceive a movement as
if it were undergoing inflation, and next morning
he found it inflated throughout its whole
length, and especially the end which had been
exposed on the bank. How the spider effects
this inflation is a puzzle to the curious in the
secrets of spider life. Are there doors or valves
in the exposed, distended, and external end?

Another puzzle is the question on what the
British tunnel spider feeds herself. No flies or
fragments of insects have been found in the
nests. How is she fed when breeding in her
nursery? Her web is not glutinous, and it is
covered with sand; and moreover there is no
door to her tubular dwelling for going out and
coming in. The spiders kept by Mr. Joshua
Brown moved backwards and forwards in their
tubes, but never came out at either end. He
concluded that the female Atypus of Sulger
neither feeds on insects nor has any means of
obtaining them. A half-devoured earthworm
having been found partly in and partly out of
one of the tubes, it was hastily inferred that a
worm-devouring spider had been found. The
way to find out is to ask the spiders themselves
by observing them closely. May not this spider
close her tube during the day to keep out her
enemies, and open it at night when going forth
in search of prey?

No mules have ever been found in any of
these cosy silken tubes. Do they dine at their
clubs, and sleep out? The lady spiders being
bigger and stronger than the gentlemen, and