Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/283

Rh pineapples can be grown, but the peaches are very inferior. Few flowering plants were to be seen, as the season was too far advanced; ferns were abundant in number and species, and many terrestrial orchids were to be found.

Some very interesting Spiders are common to this locality. When in Pretoria, my friend Dr. Kendall sent me two specimens of a fine "Mygale" (Harpactira gigas), with the following notes:—(1) "Captured under a large stone, and put in a box with a Frog, which it promptly attacked and bit. The Frog died very soon afterwards. There was no combat so far as the Frog was concerned, only fright. (2) I have obtained another 'Mygale,' and some day or two after it had been killed it fell on the ground, and was promptly pounced upon by a half-grown cat, which ate a portion of the body, and then turned deathly sick, staggered about, lay down on its side panting, and seemed about to die; but, after thus fruitlessly arousing our compassion, recovered after some hours." This was probably caused by the hairs attached to the body of the Spider. Bates, giving his experience on the Amazons of a species, Mygale avicularia, writes:—"The hairs with which they are clothed come off when touched, and cause a peculiar and almost maddening irritation. The first specimen that I killed and prepared was handled incautiously, and I suffered terribly for three days afterwards." The total length of this formidable creature of Barberton is forty millimetres.

Another somewhat small but social Spider, Stegodyphus gregarius, is not uncommon either at Barberton or Pretoria. Its presence is denoted by its large irregularly shaped nest affixed to the twigs of some thorn bush, where it is liable to create a momentary impression that one is looking at some unknown lepidopteral construction. The size of the nest is clearly variable. The Rev. O. Pickard Cambridge, in describing the species, wrote :—"A nest of this Spider, containing numerous live individuals of both sexes, some adult, some immature, was sent a short time ago by Col. Bowker from Durban to Lord Walsingham, who, kindly acting on my suggestion, sent the whole to this