Habits of Mygale in Confinement

Mr. Henry C. McCook has published (Proc. Acad. nat. sci. of Philadelphia for I887) some notes on the habits of 3lygale heztzliwhile kept in confinement in Philadelphia. Mr. McCook has had the best success in keeping spiders by feeding them well in summer and giving them but little during the winter, but lets them have all the water they want at all seasons. One ]V[ygale lived over five years, and finally died soon after moulting, though it had moulted safely several times in previous years. The last moult happened in spring, before the spider had much to eat, and for this reason, probably, it was too weak to recover fl’om the effects. One of Mr. McCook’s mygales lost several limbs while moulting. He says "two of the legs refused to separate from the skin, and after a prolonged struggle they were broken off at the coxae and remained within the moult. One foot of another leg shared the same fate." This moult occurred in the spring. In August the spider moulted again, and by this time the loser limbs had grown again, complete but a little smaller than before. The digging of these mygales was done with the fore legs and palpi. The dirt was not scratched up by the feet or kicked backward but gathered into balls between the mandibles, palpi and feet and carried away from the hole. ames H: tmerto.