Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/452

420 the parents may be seen lying about in the passages amidst the débris of deceased Beetles. Whether the older Spiders are actually killed and devoured by their own progeny, I have not so far sufficient evidence to decide. For the present, however, I incline to this view, for otherwise I can see no reason why the parents should suddenly die off as they appear to do. It is true that at this period their food supply almost comes to a standstill, for during the winter months Coleoptera cease almost entirely to venture out on the wing; but this would affect the young ones equally, if not more. Even if this supposition be correct, it is difficult to understand how the young subsist through the winter, for, so far as I have seen, they do not emerge at all from the nest, and they certainly construct no snares during that season for the capture of insects.

One of the most interesting features in the economy of these creatures has yet to be dealt with. In the winter of 1895 I examined a number of deserted nests along the Umfali river in hopes of finding Coleoptera harbouring therein, and I was surprised to find in several instances large balls of grass, wild cotton, or even feathers, right in the middle of the nest. I was quite at a loss to understand how or why the Spiders should accumulate these materials, and I did not find the solution until early in the present year.

It happened thus. On one of my entomological rambles some miles from Salisbury, I found myself suddenly enveloped in a regular winding-sheet of sticky Spiders' silk, which was evidently that of my friend Stegodyphus. I therefore walked a short distance up wind to find whence it came, and soon descried a bush on a termite heap, on the summit of which were some hundreds of these Spiders, apparently engaged in constructing a new nest, and evidently in a great state of perturbation. It at once struck me as very curious that these wary creatures should be thus exposing themselves wholesale in broad daylight, and I therefore proceeded to search for the disturbing element. The bush was placed on the side of the termite heap, and was connected by several strands of about four feet long with a bush on the top, on which was a smaller lot of some fifty Spiders. These were again connected with another shrub about six feet away on the far side of the ant heap. Here was found the original nest, and there