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It was as absurd as if a man weighing one hundred and fifty pounds were joined to a bigger half of eighteen thousand pounds' weight, and I was not fully convinced that these small spiders were really the males of the Nephila plumipes till I had witnessed the impregnation of the eggs of the females by them.
The neatest and most artistic method by which the blacks kill fish necessitates the employment of a particular species of spider known to the learned as NEPHILA MACULATA PISCATORUM. This spider was discovered on Dunk Island by Macgillivray, the naturalist of the expedition of H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE in 1848.
Through these holes or tubes issue the fine filaments, which, uniting as they dry in the air, constitute the line from each spinner. Now the Nephila plumipes possesses at least three pairs of spinners. Of these, two are much larger than the third, which indeed does not appear till they are separated.
Sir William Macgreggor, ex-Governor of Queensland, has described the Papuan art of fishing by means of kites, the lure being a tassel of the web of a spider of the Nephila species. No doubt the blacks here made an independent and original discovery, and in their simplicity applied it in a different, but none the less effective, style from that of the advanced Papuan.
Such is the real physical, and, so to speak, mental superiority of the female, that, even if we insist upon the legal equality at least of the masculine element, we can do so only in name, and will find it hard to avoid speaking of him as the male of the Nephila plumipes, thus tacitly admitting her as the truer representative of the species.
Nemertians, colours of. Neolithic period. Neomorpha, sexual difference of the beak in. Nephila, size of male. Nests, made by fishes; decoration of, by Humming-birds. Neumeister, on a change of colour in pigeons after several moultings. Neuration, difference of, in the two sexes of some butterflies and hymenoptera. Neuroptera. Neurothemis, dimorphism in.
I will add, finally, that I believe some other geometrical spiders, especially of the genus Nephila, may be found as docile, and as productive of beautiful silk, as the species I have described. At any rate, you cannot find a more interesting inmate of your Wardian case than some large geometrical spider.
Even the Nephila plumipes, which, it has been intimated, is "Christian in its disposition, and well-behaved beyond most of its kind," will readily bite, if it is held in the fingers and anything is put to its jaws. But that is nothing.
Callidryas, colours of sexes. Callionymus lyra, characters of the male. Callorhinus ursinus, relative size of the sexes of; courtship of. Calotes maria. Calotes nigrilabris, sexual difference in the colour of. Cambridge, O. Pickard, on the sexes of spiders; on the size of male Nephila. Camel, canine teeth of male.
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