e broad slanting burrows of the large stout species,
(that fine one, dark brown with paler lines down the legs, of which I
sent specimens in 1851.) The campos, I know, from close research, to be
almost destitute of insects, but at the same time to swarm with small
lizards, and some curious ground finches of the Emberiza group (one of
which has a song wonderfully resembling our yellow bunting of
England), besides which, vast numbers of the _Caprimulgidae_ and ground
doves lay their eggs on the bare ground.

"I believe this species of Mygale feeds on these animals and their eggs
at night. Just at the close of day, when I have been hurrying home, not
liking to be benighted on the pathless waste, I have surprised these
monsters, who retreated within the mouths of their burrows on my
approach."[163]

[142] _Brit. Rept._, 51.

[143] _Penny Cyclop._, xxvi. 348.

[144] Loudon's _Mag. Nat. Hist._ for 1837, p. 441.

[145] _Zool._, 2305.

[146] Ibid., 2355.

[147] _Zool._, 7278.

[148] _Captivity among the Indians._

[149] _Zool._, 2269.

[150] _Introd. a l'Entom._, ii. 143.

[151] _Op. cit._, viii. 163.

[152] _Westwood's Mod. Classif. Ins._, ii. 430.

[153] _Introd. to Entom._ Lett. xxv.

[154] _Mag. Nat. Hist._, New Ser., i. 353.

[155] Ibid., i. 553.

[156] Dr Boisduval, one hot evening in June, found caterpillars on grass
which diffused a phosphorescent light; he thought them to be those of
_Mamestra oleracca_--one of the most abundant of our moths--but they
seemed larger than common; and whether owing to want of care in the
rearing or to a condition of disease--which may, indeed, have been the
cause of their luminosity--none of them attained the chrysalis state,
and so the species was not absolutely decided.

[157] _Introd. to Entom._, _loc. cit._

[158] _Exped. into Int. of Brazil._

[159] Tennent, _Ceylon_, ii. 226.

[160] Probably we should read "diameter" for "circumference." A spider
whose legs cover an area of six inches _in circumference_ is by no means
rare even in England.

[161] _Journ. Asiat. Soc._

[162] _Proc. Entom. Soc._, November 1, 1852.

[163] _Proc. Entomol. Soc._, July 2, 1855.

VIII.

FASCINATION.

It is a notion of long standing and widely diffused, that certain
predaceous animals have a power, which, however, they only occasionally
exert, of paralysing the creatures on which they prey, so as utterly to
take away the faculty of flight, and even, in some circu