PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 7-8, OCT.-NOV., 1922 175 



and James Montgomery; the former gives a most realistic and 

 vivid description of the behaviour of the Arachnid: 



"But to heedless flies the window proves 

 A constant death; where gloomily retired, 

 The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce. 

 Mixture abhorr'd! Mid a mangled heap 

 Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits, 

 O'erlooking all his waving snares around. 

 Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft 

 Passes, as oft the ruffian shows his front; 

 The prey at last ensnared, he dreadful darts, 

 With rapid glide, along the leaning line; 

 And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs, 

 Strikes backward grimly pleased." 



Summer, 



Poets, in spite of their assumed wisdom, often make comical 

 mistakes in interpreting the behaviour of insects. Thus Samuel 

 Low, an American poet of the late 18th century, has turned his 

 spider wrong-end-to in the following: 



"Thou villain insect! well do I perceive 

 The treacherous web thy murderous fangs have wrought. " 



No particular species of spider ever is mentioned but frequent 

 allusion is made to Arachne, a Lydian maiden, who, by superior 

 skill in weaving, is said to have aroused in the goddess Pallas, 

 the extremely ungoddesslike emotion of envy, and hence was 

 transformed into a spider. But spiders are not the only Arach- 

 nids mentioned in poetry, as the mites have receivedjappropri- 

 ate attention; says Swift: 



"In bulk there are not more degrees 

 From elephants to mites in cheese, 

 Than what a curious eye may trace 

 In creatures of the rhyming race." 



On Poetry. 



Mrs. Annie T. Slosson, a celebrated American collector of 

 insects, wrote many humorous verses on insects among which is 

 one on the red-bugs or "chiggers." These pestiferous mites 

 were long supposed to enter the sweat glands of the human 

 species but the recent work of Dr. H. E. Ewing has shown this 

 supposition to be entirely erroneous. The opening lines of Mrs. 

 Slosson's verse are: 



"I sing of the red bug 

 You know that this said bug 

 Doth e'en as a dead bug 

 Sting, tease and inflame; 

 A sweat pore doth enter 

 And dive to its center." 



