As in the case of many spiders—though by no means of all—his courting is not unattended with peril. The tragic fate which sometimes overtakes the male spider has so hit the popular imagination that there is a general impression that the female spider is a confirmed misanthrope and desires the life of any suitor bold enough to approach her. Not at all! We have simply to remember that spiders are carnivorous and prone to cannibalism. If the female happens to be hungry she makes no nice discrimination between an amorous male and a succulent grass-hopper; if replete, she may find time for the play of softer emotions. The male of _D. hentzi_ appears to be more or less prepared for a hostile reception on the part of the female, for the thighs of his front legs are furnished with spurs at their extremity and with these he holds back and renders powerless her threatening fangs. There is no doubt that the spider’s delicate sense of touch resides in the hairs with which both body and limbs are thickly clothed. They are of various kinds—fine hairs, bristles, and stout spines—and many of them are supplied with nerve-fibres at the base. The finer hairs are probably not sensory, and they are, in the case of some Avicularid spiders very easily shed, and have a strongly irritant action on the hand that touches them, not unlike the sting of a nettle. It is not at all unusual for one large Avicularid spider, _Psalmopoeus cambridgii_, to be brought over to England in cases of bananas from the W. Indies. Mr James Adams of Dunfermline has kept two specimens alive for a considerable time. The first specimen lived in captivity for two years and nine months, during which it moulted five times but grew very little in size. Arriving in September, it was at first fed on flies, and in a few weeks, when these began to fail, it accepted beetles, consuming about three a day. In November, even these insects were difficult to obtain, and recourse was had to cockroaches. At first about three cockroaches a week were eaten but the number decreased until, in the middle of March it ceased feeding altogether, and on April 13 it cast its skin. It moulted again in October, and twice a year for the rest of its life—in spring and autumn. During six months it took no food at all, and very little for four months previously. At the last moult but one it lost a limb, which however, reappeared when the spider again changed its skin, though it never attained the proper size. With spiders, as with insects, moulting is a very serious matter, involving much more than the mere casting off of an external coat. If all does not go well limbs may easily be lost in the operation, nor is it rare to meet with instances in which the animal has perished in its unsuccessful attempt to discard the old integument.