This species stands on an area of about three inches, and never spins a web, but wanders about and lives in holes; his length of limb, breadth of thorax and powerful jaws give him a most formidable appearance.

There is another species of a large-sized spider who spins a web of about two and a half feet in diameter.

This is composed of a strong, yellow, silky fibre, and so powerful is the texture that a moderate-sized walking-cane thrown into the web will be retained by it.

This spider is about two inches long, the color black, with a large yellow spot upon the back, and the body nearly free from hair.
Some years ago an experiment was made in France of substituting the thread of the spider for the silk of the silkworm: several pairs of stockings and various articles were manufactured with tolerable success in this new material, but the fibre was generally considered as too fragile.
A sample of such thread as is spun by the spider described could not have failed to produce the desired result, as its strength is so great that it can be wound upon a card without the slightest care required in the operation.

The texture is far more silky than the fibre commonly produced by spiders, which has more generally the character of cotton than of silk.
Should this ever be experimented on, a question might arise of much interest to entomologists, whether a difference in the food of the spider would affect the quality of the thread, as is well known to be the case with the common silkworm.
A Ceylon night after a heavy shower of rain is a brilliant sight, when the whole atmosphere is teeming with moving lights bright as the stars themselves, waving around the tree-tops in fiery circles, now threading like distant lamps through the intricate branches and lighting up the dark recesses of the foliage, then rushing like a shower of sparks around the glittering boughs.