In rambling along the edge of one of the pretty rice-valleys north of Ambòhimànga, I came across a species I had not met with before. This was of medium size, but was striped in transverse lines of white and black across the abdomen, so as to give it a zebra-like appearance. The under side was almost white; altogether it is a handsome species, and is probably still undescribed scientifically. It makes a geometrical web, and, like several other Madagascar spiders, puts the web into rapid vibration if it is disturbed. Some species draw up their legs close to the body when lying in wait in the centre of their web, so that they too resemble a small lump of earth or a stone. Is not this also done as a disguise? It seems to me highly probable. Other species have the habit of stretching out their legs in couples, so as to seem almost as if they had only four or six legs instead of eight, and thus appear to mimic insects. Is this also intended to hide their predaceous character? A traveller through the Tanòsy country, south-east coast, speaks of the uncanny aspect of one of the villages in which he stayed; and he says that what increased his impression of it, as like a town of wicked enchanters, was that all the houses were festooned and closely linked together overhead by tangled masses of gigantic spiders’ webs, amongst which lay in wait monstrous black spiders. Some of the coast villages, he says, were almost completely roofed in by these great webs. Spaces of quite thirty feet have been observed spanned by the lines of the nephila mentioned in a former chapter; and I have noticed that the angles and outer spaces of its great web are frequently filled up by the minute geometric webs of smaller species. These lesser fry appear to be tolerated, if not encouraged, by their giant neighbour, as they probably catch what would be insignificant to her, and very likely clear her web of what she rejects; and so they all live together in harmony in a small colony. [Sidenote: PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE] Looking about in the undergrowth for wild flowers and fruit, and happening to rub against the stem of one of the bushes, a small rough roundish ball falls off on to the ground; this appears exactly like a bit of round wrinkled bark, but on watching for a minute or two, it develops four pairs of legs, and runs nimbly away under cover, revealing itself as a spider, with a marvellous protective resemblance to its surroundings. Unless the creature actually moves, it is impossible to detect it, it is so exactly like a knobby bit of the brown bark.