d copied nature, when, to my delighted surprise, I discovered
that I had actually secured a second specimen, but the imitation was
so exquisite that I really did not perceive how matters stood for some
moments. The spider never moved while I was plucking or twirling the
leaf, and it was only when I placed the tip of my little finger on it,
that I observed that it was a spider, when it, without any
displacement of itself, flashed its falces into my flesh.

"The first specimen I got was in W. Java, while hunting one day for
Lepidoptera. I observed a specimen of one of the Hesperidae sitting, as
is often a custom of theirs, on the excreta of a bird on a leaf; I
crept near it, intending to examine what they find in what one is
inclined to consider incongruous food for a butterfly. I approached
nearer and nearer, and at last caught it between my fingers, when I
found that it had as I thought become glued by its feet to the mass;
but on pulling gently the spider, to my amazement, disclosed itself by
letting go its hold: only then did I discover that I was not looking
on a veritable bird's excreta.... The spider is in general color
white, spotted here and there with black; on the underside its rather
irregularly shaped and prominent abdomen is almost all white, of a
pure chalk white; the angles of the legs are, however, shining
jet-black. The spider does not make an ordinary web, but only the
thinnest film on the surface of the leaf. The appearance of the
excreta rather recently left by a bird on a leaf is well known. There
is a pure white deposit in the centre, thinning out round the margin,
while in the central mass are dark portions variously disposed; as the
leaf is rarely horizontal, the more liquid portions run for some
distance. Now, this spider one might almost imagine to have in its
rambles 'marked and inwardly discerned' what it had observed, and to
have set about practising the 'wrinkles' gained; for it first weaves a
small, irregular patch of white web on some prominent leaf, then a
narrow streak laid down towards its sloping margin ending in a small
knob; it then takes its place on the centre of the irregular spot on
its back, crosses its black-angled legs over its thorax, and waits.
Its pure white abdomen represents the central mass of the bird's
excreta, the black legs the dark portions of the slime, while the web
above described which it has spun represents the more watery marginal
part (become dry), even to th