Because a wolf will cower down in the corner of his lair (even a tiger has been known to do so)—when a man suddenly enters his presence, and will manifest the most abject fear, would it be philosophical to ridicule the tales told of wolves pursuing and devouring men by night?
M. Langsdorff asked the people of Brazil if the Caranquexeira, or the great Mygale of that country, fed upon humming-birds, when they answered him, with bursts of laughter, that it only gratified its maw with large flies, ants, bees, wasps, beetles, &c.; an answer which the traveller verified by his own personal experience.[158] If M. Langsdorff means, which of course he does, that he learned by personal observation that the spider ordinarily feeds on insects, that fact is indubitable, and never has been doubted; but if he means that he had experience that it eats only such prey, which is the question at issue, it is plain that this experience proves no more than that he never witnessed such a fact.
Percival, in his account of Ceylon, observes:—"There is an immense spider here, with legs not less than four inches long, and having the body covered with thick black hair." This was doubtless the Mygale of the island. "The webs which it makes are strong enough to entangle and hold even small birds, which form its usual prey." Alluding to this statement, Sir Emerson Tennent says:—
"As to the stories told of the Mygale catching and killing birds, I am satisfied, both from inquiry and observation, that, at least in Ceylon, they are destitute of truth, and that (unless in the possible case of acute suffering from hunger) this creature shuns all description of food except soft insects and annelides." And yet he immediately adds:—"A lady at Marandan, near Colombo, told me that she had, on one occasion, seen a little house-lizard (gecko) seized and devoured by one of these ugly spiders."[159] Does he not, then, credit his informant? Or are lizards included in the category of "soft insects and annelides?"
Against this incredulity, resting on no better than negative evidence, one might adduce collateral proof from analogy. There are spiders which feed on vertebrate animals, and there are spiders whose webs catch birds. The large and beautiful Nephila claripes of tropical America weaves strong threads of yellow silk in the paths of the woods, converging to a web quite strong enough to arrest a bird of weak flight. It must have been a species allied to this, but certainly, I think, not the same, of which Dr Walsh speaks in his "Travels in Brazil." "Among the insects is an enormous spider, which I did not observe elsewhere. In passing through an opening between some trees, I felt my head entangled in some obstructions, and on withdrawing it, my straw hat remained behind. When I looked up I saw it suspended in the air, entangled in the meshes of an immense cobweb, which was drawn like a veil of thick gauze across the opening, and was expanded from branch to branch of the opposite trees as large as a sheet ten or twelve feet in diameter. The whole of this space was covered with spiders of the same species but different sizes; some of them, when their legs were expanded, forming a circle of six or seven inches in circumference.[160] They were particularly distinguished by bright spots. The cords composing the web were of a glossy yellow, like the fibres of silkworms, and equally strong."
There is a creature found in the tropical parts of both hemispheres, called Solpuga, which though not exactly a spider, is yet so closely allied to that family as to be in some measure responsible for its misdoings. It is about as large as the Mygale, and, with sufficient general resemblance to it to warrant its being popularly considered a spider, it has much the same habits and appetites. Captain Hutton, in a most interesting memoir, describes the details of an Indian species under the name of Galeodes vorax. Among many other details, he says—"This species is extremely voracious, feeding at night upon beetles, flies, and even large lizards; and sometimes gorging itself to such a degree as to render it almost unable to move. A lizard, three inches long, exclusive of tail, was entirely devoured; the spider sprung at it, and made a seizure immediately behind the shoulder, never quitting its hold until the whole was consumed. The poor lizard struggled violently at first, rolling over and over in its agony, but the spider kept firm hold, and gradually sawed away with its double jaws into the very entrails of the victim. The only parts uneaten were the jaws and part of the skin, although the lizard was at least five inches long from nose to extremity of tail. After this meal, the spider remained gorged and motionless for about a fortnight, being much swollen and distended.
"A young sparrow, about half grown, was placed under a bell-glass with a Galeodes; the moment the luckless bird moved, the spider seized him by the thigh, which he speedily sawed off, in spite of the sparrow's fluttering; and then as the poor bird continued to struggle in pain, the savage seized him by the throat, and soon put an end to his sufferings by cutting off the head. It did not, however, devour the bird, nor any part of it, but seemed satisfied with having killed it.
"On another occasion, I gave it a large garden-lizard, which was instantly seized by the middle of the body; the lizard, finding that it could not shake off its adversary, turned its head, and bit the Galeodes on the leg, which obliged it immediately to quit its hold and retreat.
"On another occasion my friend, Dr Baddeley, confined one of these spiders in a wall-shade with two young musk rats (Sorex Indicus), both of which were killed by it."[161]
In an expedition to the Kurruckpoor Hills, south of Monghyr, Captain Sherwill found upon the summit of Maruk, a table-topped hill of 1100 feet elevation, several of the gigantic webs of the Epeira spider, some of which measured (including the guy-ropes) from ten to twelve feet in diameter, the reticulated portion being about five feet, in the centre of which the spider, of a formidable size and very active, sits waiting for prey. "The webs," he says, "from their great strength, offered a sensible resistance when forcing our way through them. In the web of one of the spiders we found a bird entangled, and the young spiders, about eight in number, feeding upon the carcase. The bird was, with the exception of its legs and beak, entirely enveloped in the web, and was much decomposed; the entwined web had completely pinioned the wings of the bird, so as to render its escape impossible. The bird was about the size of a field-lark, and was near the centre of the web; the old spider was about a foot above the bird: we secured, measured, and bottled him. Its dimensions were six inches across the legs, and it was armed with a formidable pair of mandibles."[162]