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The author who first gave popular currency to this story was Madame MERIAN, a zoological artist of the last century, many of whose drawings are still preserved in the Museums of St. Petersburg, Holland, and England. In a work on the Insects of Surinam, published in 1705 , she figured the Mygale aricularia, in the act of devouring a humming-bird.
Velasquez told me that when he was a boy he and other children used to amuse themselves by pulling the Mygale out of its hole, which is about a foot deep in the ground.
He feared the young man would not appreciate any of his duplicate Araneides; not even the great American Mygale, one of his most precious treasures; or else he would gladly have bestowed any duplicate on the donor of a real dried Exocetus. What could he do for him? He could ask Margaret to sing. Other folks beside her old doting grandfather thought a deal of her songs.
When the Mygale comes home, the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactly that there is no possibility of distinguishing the join. If the aggressor persist and seek to raise the trap-door, the recluse pushes the bolt, that is to say, plants her claws into certain holes on the opposite side to the hinge, props herself against the wall and holds the door firmly.
The outside is disguised with bits of moss, glued on so that no one can see where the door is. The only way of opening it is with a pin, and even then the spider will hold on inside with his claws, so that it is not easy to overcome his resistance. Amongst some insects sent to me from Los Angelos is a huge "Mygale," a hairy monster of very uninviting aspect.
I knew a native woman who had been bitten on the leg, and who, after fourteen years, still suffered at intervals acute pains in the limb. The king of the spiders on the pampas is, however, not a Mygale, but a Lycosa of extraordinary size, light grey in colour, with a black ring round its middle.
Baron Walckenær and Latreille both corroborated it by other authorities; and M. Moreau da Jonnès, who studied the habits of the Mygale in Martinique, says it hunts far and wide in search of its prey, conceals itself beneath leaves for the purpose of surprising them, and climbs the branches of trees to devour the young of the humming-bird, and of the Certhia flaveola.
The extremity of the tube is carried out to the entrance, where it expands into a little platform, stayed by braces to the nearest objects that afford a firm hold. In particular situations, where the entrance is exposed to the wind, the mygale, on the approach of the monsoon, extends the strong tissue above it so as to serve as an awning to prevent the access of rain.
It was one of the Black Soldier spiders, by some regarded as a native myth, but actually existing in Surinam and parts of Brazil. A member of the family, Mygale, its sting was more quickly and certainly fatal than that of a rattle-snake. Its instinct was fearlessly to attack any creature, great or small, which disturbed it in its dark hiding-place.
Layard found that the soft parts of the body had been eaten, nothing but the head, thorax, and clytra remaining. Nat. Hist. But, in addition to minor and ignoble prey, the Mygale rests under the imputation of seizing small birds and feasting on their blood.
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