NOTES TO THE 



is its dull colour. I tried it with several dyes both aqueous and 

 alcoholic ; the latter succeeded best, but not quite so well as an 

 oily stain made by soaking alkanet root in linseed oil, the oily 

 matter of which was removed by washing with soapsuds. Some 

 spider silk, it would appear, has naturally a beautiful colour, 

 such as that which Dr. Wilder describes as discovered by him 

 at Folly Island in Charleston harbour in 1863. He wound, in 

 an hour and a quarter, 150 yards of yellow silk from the body 

 of one spider. One of his brother officers wound 3,484 yards, 

 or nearly two miles of silk from thirty spiders. This thread 

 was capable of sustaining from 54 to 107 grains. He describes 

 the silk as yellow and white with a lustre as brilliant as gold or 

 silver. I once obtained a cocoon of an English spider which 

 appeared to have been spun with gold thread. Dr. Wilder 

 found great difficulties in rearing the spiders, from their tendency 

 to prey on each other, which, I fear, will render it next to im- 

 possible to turn this beautiful spider-silk to practical account." 



HORSES, p. 191. I am certain that a great many racehorses are 

 made very savage by being shut up in stalls away from other 

 horses ; a horse is by nature a gregarious animal, and it is pain and 

 misery to him to be shut up alone. Horses have very quick 

 hearing, arid at night timid horses are often kept awake by rats 

 moving about. Eats, therefore, should always be exterminated 

 in stables. Goats are often kept in stables ; as I am told that 

 goats will face fire. Should the stable take fire, the goats will 

 give the horses the lead out of it, whereas if there were no goat 

 the horses would neither walk nor be led out. It is said that to a 

 horse's eye everything is magnified, and this is the reason why man 

 has such power over him ; to a horse a man possibly appears to 

 be of a gigantic size. The molar teeth of horses fastened to- 

 gether with cement form very ornamental mosaic pavement for 

 summer-houses or entrances to hall-doors. They may be also cut 

 and polished to make ornamental tables for the drawing-room. 



Nothing is so difficult to stuff well as a horse's head. There 

 is an old man who supplies gentles to the Zoological Gardens, 

 Regent's Park : the attendants call him the " Gentle-Man." The 

 head of a black horse was once sent to this man to be stuffed, 

 and he confessed to Mr. Bartlett that he had made such a hideous 

 object of it, that " when he went out of a morning he was obliged 

 to cover it over, lest when he came home at night he should 

 be frightened at it." 



People who wish to have relics kept of favourite horses 

 should have their ears preserved ; they make nice holders 

 for spills ; the hoofs also make good inkstands ; and the tails 

 mounted on a stick are an excellent thing to kill flies. 



