GALEODES ARANOIDES. Species of this genus of spiders occur in Central Asia, Tartary, and the Himalaya. The Lycosa or Tarantuloides Singoriensis (Aranea tarantula, Pallas), and the scorpion spiders common on the steppes, are the Galeodes aranoides (Phalangium aranoides, Pallas). The latter, or a congener common in Afghanistan, was there mistaken for the tarantula by Elphin stone. Both, but more especially the Galeodes (or Solpuga), are celebrated for their bites, re puted to be envenomed, though this is now denied by naturalists. G. aranoides is a tenible pest on the Astracan steppe, where its bite is much dreaded by the Kalmuks, who call it the black widow' (Belbussan charra). They harbour chiefly under the tufts of wormwood, and about the bones which are always to be.. foimd near a Kalmuk habitation, and also at the mouth of the deserted nests of the Spermophilus citillus, where they collect a sort of bed of leaves. Camels seem to suffer most from these spiders, because they are most addicted to lying on the ground.
Galeodes vornx. Hutton. An extremely vora cious spider of Northern India, which feeds at night on beetles, flies, and even large lizards, sometimes gorging itself to such a degree as to become almost unable to move, and remaining torpid and motionless for about a fortnight. A
sparrow, as also a musk rat (Sorex Indicus), were put along with it and killed by it. One was seen to attack a young sparrow half-grown, and seized it by the thigh, which it sawed through. The savage then caught the bird by the throat, and put an end to its sufferings by cutting off its head. Dr. Baddeley confined one of these spiders under a glass wall-shade with two young musk rats (Sorex Indieus), both of which it destroyed. It must be added, however, that neither in the instance of the bird, of the lizard, or the rats, did the galeodes devour its prey after killing it. Capt. T. Hutton, in the eleventh volume of the Asiatic Society's Journal, make,s mention of a lizard bitten by one being 'allowed to escape with only a severe wound on the side ; but as it lived for some days before being permitted to run off, the bite of the galeodes would not appear to be poisonous.'—Gosse, p. 237 ; Captain Hutton, in Jo. As. Soc. Ben. xi. part ii. p. 860.