Other spiders—as doubtless the _Mygale_ if he can get them—will eat lizards, as the following account by Mr. Frederick Pollock will show: “Having procured from the Deserta Grande some fine specimens of this large and handsome spider (_Lycosa_—a kind of tarantula) in the early part of this year, and having provided suitable cages with glass lids for them, I was anxious to ascertain how large an animal the largest spider would take; and for this purpose I obtained some lizards about three inches long, including the tail. Three of these lizards were killed and devoured by one spider during the time I kept it. They were eaten bones and head and claws and all, the only remnant of the feast being a small ball about a quarter of an inch in diameter, which was cast aside at the bottom of the cage.”[138] But why were not some larger lizards tried, since there was no difficulty about three inches? Every inch would have increased the fun—I mean have added to the scientific interest. But perhaps there were none larger. Mr. Pollock goes on to say that “the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and Deserta Grande all lie within an area about fifty miles across. They have each its own peculiar large _Lycosa_, no two being alike; and it is a very remarkable fact that these _Lycosæ_ vary in size inversely with the magnitude of the island on which they are found—Madeira, the largest island, having the smallest _Lycosa_, and Deserta Grande, the smallest island, having by far the largest spider. The mode of defence of all these varieties of _Lycosæ_ is precisely the same. They elevate the thorax, raise the first pair of legs high up, and opening wide asunder their falces, strike at and seize any object, such as the end of a pencil” (or the tail of a lizard) “in a most formidable manner.”[138] There is another lizard-eating spider, or at least a spider that will eat lizards when formally introduced to them, and that in a very scientifically interesting manner, the lizard showing such a lively sense of its situation, and the jaws of the spider working in a way which is very curious. These jaws, it appears, are double, also “cheliform,” “denticulate,” and several other things, from which I gather that there are two pairs, each pair working something like the claws of a crab, but with a sawing action, adapted to their toothed surface. By an extremely beautiful adjustment, when the spider in question seizes its prey, one pair of jaws holds on to it, whilst the other saws into it, and then the pair which has been sawing, holds, and the pair which has been holding, saws, and so on alternately, a division, and yet, at the same time, a combination of labour. “Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition.”