222 avery's own farrier. 



losopher Wyllys truthfully says in regard to it: that if 

 there was a link wanting, the ends thereof surely lap by 

 far enough to tie, and that some of the lower order of 

 the human species run below some of the higher grades 

 of animals, as to their reasoning faculties, there can be 

 but little doubt. And as another evidence of what I have 

 stated above, you will permit me to relate the story of 

 the spider and the snake, as told by the Hon. A. B. 

 Dickinson, which I will give in his own words. " I will 

 not attempt," he says, " to say where instinct leaves off 

 or knowledge begins, but, perhaps, I may as well, by way 

 of illustration, tell a story, though most of you have un- 

 doubtedly heard it, and many were witnesses to this won- 

 derful sagacity on the part of the spider in stringing a 

 snake up by the neck. The great thing in the whole 

 affair was in putting the web over the mouth of the 

 snake, which was done with as much skill as a first class 

 mechanic could have muzzled a dog to prevent his biting. 

 This web was secured around the snake's neck, and then 

 hoisting was commenced at the rate of one-quarter of 

 an inch in twenty-four hours, by thickening and twisting 

 up the web. 



The snake was first discovered by a merchant, under 

 his counter, where he had undoubtedly been carried with 

 saw dust, which had been put in several weeks previous 

 to prevent mud from being tracked about the store. When 

 the reptile was first discovered by the merchant he took 

 a club to kill it, but he observed that it seemed to be fast 

 without seeing what held it, the web being too small to 

 be seen by the naked eye. After he became satisfied 

 through a magnifying glass that the creature was fast- 



