ARANEID^: — TRUE SPIDERS. 335 



of the duchy of Y , a man of merit and probity, 



who played upon several instruments to the utmost excel- 

 lence. He told me that beings at , he went into his 



chamber to refresh himself after a walk, and took up a 

 violin to amuse himself till supper time, setting a light upon 

 the table before him ; he had not played a quarter of au hour 

 before he saw several spiders descend from the ceiling, who 

 came and ranged themselves round about the table to hear 

 him play, at which he was greatly surprised, but this did not 

 interrupt him, being willing to see the end of so singular an 

 occurrence. They remained on the table very attentively 

 till somebody came to tell him that supper was ready, when 

 having ceased to play, he told me these insects remounted to 

 their webs, to which he would suffer no injury to be done. 

 It was a diversion with which he often entertained himself 

 out of curiosity."^ 



The Abbe Olivet has described an amusement of Pelisson 

 during his confinement in the Bastile for refusing to betray 

 to the government certain secrets intrusted to him by a 

 friend w'ho was a leading politician at the court of Louis 

 XIY., which consisted in feeding a Spider, ^vhich he dis- 

 covered forming its w^eb across the only air-hole of his cell. 

 For some time he placed his flies at the edge of the window, 

 while a stupid Basque, his sole companion, played on a 

 bagpipe. Little by little the Spider used itself to distin- 

 guish the sound of the instrument, and issued from its hole 

 to run and catch its prey. Thus calling it always by the 

 same sound, and placing the flies at a still greater distance, 

 he succeeded, after several months, to drill the Spider by 

 regular exercise, so that at length it never failed appearing 

 at'the first sound to seize on the fly provided for it, at the 

 extremity of the cell, and even on the knees of the pris- 

 oner.^ 



1 Hist, de la JIus., i. 321. Hawkins' Hist, of Music, iii. 117, note. 



2 Biogr. Univers., tome xxxiii. See also Arvine's Anecdotes, p. 402. 

 To this account, in the Hist, of Insects printed by John Murray, 



1830, i. 2(39, is added: "The governor of the Bastile hearing that 

 this unfortunate prisoner had found a solace in the society of a 

 Spider, paid Pelisson a visit, desiring to see the manoeuvres of the 

 insect. The Basque struck up his notes, the Spider instantly came 

 to be fed by his friend; but the moment it appeared on the floor of 

 the cell, the governor placed his foot on its body, and crushed it to 

 death."' 



