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Show 1896.] SPIDERS FROM THE LOWER AMAZONS. 743 silk, with one or more openings at the entrance, would be constructed amongst the palm-leaf thatch of the native houses. The spiders would often be seen sitting near the tube on the outsides of the palm-stem, nor were they either very rapid in their movements or inclined to attack those w h o interfered with them; merely raising themselves on their hind legs in an attitude of defence. I was not successful, however, in securing any clue to the nature of their food; no debris of any sort was to be found in the nest itself, nor did I even surprise one in the act of seizing or devouring its prey. Males, too, were apparently very scarce, for not a single specimen of this sex was met with. Beyond the raising themselves on the last two pairs of legs and striking with the mandibles, I noticed no habit worth mentioning. I might, however, call attention to the scrabbling, rustling, pattering noise made by the spider in running upon any dry substance. A pair of large Avlcularias, striving to escape from an umbrella into which they have fallen from the banana leaves, make a most appalling noise. Such a noise is entirely unexpected from spiders whose feet are so well padded with soft hairs beneath; but whether the noise is made by the claws, which I doubt, or bv the soft pad, which is difficult to believe, I a m so far unable to decide. AVICULARIA AVICULARIA VARIEGATA, subspecies nov. (Plate XXXIII. fig. 12, 2 •) Hab. Itacoitiara, Lower Amazons. Similar to the above in all respects except that the long hairs are grizzled with grey at the tips, and very thick, especially on the third and fourth pairs of legs. The apex of the tarsi, too, is tipped with a narrow band of pink hairs, while there is a noticeable and entire absence of the fiery-red hairs so characteristic of Avicularia on the legs. The abdomen, too, is clothed on the sides with long grizzled and delicate pink hairs, not fiery-red, while the whole body is of a delicate mossy-green tint, from the green-grey pubescence, harmonizing well with the foliage amongst which they live. Of this beautiful variety I beat two specimens, females, into an umbrella from banana trees in the neighbourhood of Itacoitiara or Serpa, on the north bank of the Amazons, Feb. 7, 1896. The most interesting point about these two varieties seems to be-judging of course entirely by the long series captured over a distance of a thousand miles inland on the Amazons-that as we went further west there began to be a tendency to grizzled hairs. One specimen in particular, taken from a banana tree in a clearing in the forest at Santarem, presents a distinctly intermediate character between these two extreme forms, the hairs of the first two pairs of legs being decidedly grizzled. It would have been very interesting to compare the males of the grizzled form, variegata, with males of the typical Avicularia ; but fortune did not favour m e in this respect. |