332 ARANElDuE — TRUE SPIDERS. 



Araneidae — True Spiders. 



A little head and body small, 

 AVitli slendei' feet and very tall, 

 Belly gi'cat, and from thence come all 

 The webs it spins. — Moufet.i 



"Domitian sometime," says Hollingshed incidentally in 

 his Chronicles of England, " and an other prince yet living, 

 delited so much to see the iollie combats betwixt a stout 



Flie and an old Spider Some parasites also in the 



time of the aforesaid emperour (when they were disposed 

 to laugh at his follie, and yet would seem in appearance to 

 gratifie his fantasticall head with some shew of dutiful de- 

 menour) could devise to set tiieir lorde on worke, by letting 

 a fresh flie privilie into his chamber, which he foorthwith 

 would egerlie have hunted (all other businesse set apart) 

 and never ceased till he had caught him in his fingers: 

 whereupon arose the proverbe ' ne musca quidem,' altered 

 first by Yitius Priscus, who being asked whether anie bodie 

 was with Domitian, answered ' ne musca quidem,' whereby 

 he noted his follie. There are some cockes combs here 

 and there in England, learning it abroad as men transre- 

 gionate, which make account also of this pastime, as of a 

 notable matter, telling what a fight is seene betweene them, 

 if either of them be lustie and couragious in his kind. One 

 also hath mad a booke of the Spider and the Flie, wherein 

 he dealeth so profoundlie, and beyond all measure of skill, 

 that neither he himself that made it, neither anie one that 

 readeth it can reach unto the meaning thereof"^ 



Chapelain, the author of Pucelle, was called by the acade- 

 micians the Knight of the Order of the Spider, because he 

 was so avaricious, that though he had an income of 13,000 

 livres, and more than 240,000 in ready money, he wore an old 

 coat so patched, pieced, and threadbare, that the stitches ex- 

 hibited no bad resemblance to the fibers produced by that 

 insect. Being one day present at a large party given by 

 the great Conde, a Spider of uncommon size fell from the 

 ceiling upon the floor. The company thought it could not 



iTopsel's Trans. — Hist, of Beasts and Serpents, p. 1058. 

 2 Chronicles, i. 385. 



