The spider mentioned above as devouring her lover was the common garden or geometric one, as it is sometimes called, which in England is the largest example of a web-spinner. In other parts of the world, however, web-spinning spiders attain to a much larger size, and their webs, of course, are in proportion. The largest, perhaps, are found in Madagascar, and the gigantic fabrics which many of these weave are curiously utilised by smaller spiders of a parasitic disposition, who spin their own little webs between the thick strands of those of their hosts. Here they live in perfect amity with the latter, in whose presence they find a protection against the attacks of small birds—for these, it would seem, stand in awe of these huge spiders, in whose toils they are sometimes accidentally caught, and by whom they are then devoured. So, at least, Vinson, the historian of the spiders of Madagascar, would seem to imply, if he does not actually make the statement, of which I will not be quite sure.[136] That the great _Mygale_ of South America eats birds is now an established fact, Bates having given an account of it in his well-known work, _The Naturalist on the River Amazon_.[137] In this case also the birds—for there were two of them—were caught in a web, but it was not a geometric one, in which the spider sat, but a much denser and more closely woven fabric stretched across a crevice, or irregularity, in the trunk of a tree, the spider—which was of much larger size than the largest _Epeira_—keeping watch behind it in the recess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: A BIRD-CATCHING SPIDER’S WEB.] This enormous Madagascar spider spins webs so strong that birds are caught and held in them. In one of the large meshes will be seen a small parasitic spider’s web for catching flies and other insects. The smaller spider is not only permitted to do this, but is protected by its host from the attacks of the smaller birds.