222 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



not appearing to be aware that the fact had been observed 

 before. This writer is Dr. John Topham, whom the late 

 Dr. Sharpey, F.R.S., assured me is a competent observer, 

 and who publishes the account in ' Nature ' (xi. 18) : — 



A spider constructed its weh in an angle of my garden, the 

 sides of which were attached by long threads to shrubs at the 

 height of nearly three feet from the gravel path beneath. Being 

 much exposed to the wind, the equinoctial gales of this autumn 

 destroyed the web several times. 



The ingenious spider now adopted the contrivance hero 

 represented. It secured a conical fragment of gravel with its 

 larger end upwards by two cords, one attached to each of its 

 opposite sides, to the apex of its wedge-shaped web, and left it 

 suspended as a moveable weight to be opposed to the effect of 

 such gusts of air as had destroyed the webs previously occupy- 

 ing the same situation. 



The spider must have descended to the gravel path for this 

 special object, and having attached threads to a stone suited to 

 its purpose, must have afterwards raised this by fixing itself 

 upon the web, and pulling the weight up to a height of more 

 than two feet from the ground, where it hung suspended by 

 elastic cords. The excellence of the contrivance is too evident 

 to require further comment. 



An almost precisely analogous case, with a sketch, is 

 published by another observer in ' Land and Water,' Dec. 

 12, 1877. 



Scorpions, 



Before quitting the Arachnida I must allude to some 

 recent correspondence on the alleged tendency of the 

 scorpion to commit suicide when surrounded by fire. 

 This alleged tendency has long been recognised in 

 popular fables, and has been used by Byron as a poetical 

 metaphor in certain well-known lines. But until the 

 publication of the correspondence to which I allude, no one 

 supposed the tendency in question to have any existence 

 in fact. This correspondence took place in 'Nature' 

 (vol. xi.), and as the subject is an interesting one, I shall 

 reproduce the more important contributions to it in ex- 

 tenso. It was opened by Mr. W. G-. Biddie as follows : — 



I shall feel obliged if you will record in ' Nature ' a fact with 



