1896.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEV/S. 39 



play, all those Spiders retired quietly into their lodgings; such an assem- 

 bly made the officer fall into reflections upon what the ancients had told 

 of Orpheus, Arion and Amphion. He assured me he remained six days 

 without again playing, having with difficulty recovered from his astonish- 

 ment, not to mention a natural aversion he had for this sort of insects, 

 nevertheless he began afresh to give a concert to these animals, who 

 seemed to come every day in greater numbers, as if they had invited 

 others, so that in process of time he found a hundred of them about him. 

 In order to rid himself of them he desired one of the jailors to give him 

 a cat, which he sometimes shut up in a cage when he wished to have this 

 company and let her loose when he had a mind to dismiss them, making 

 it thus a kiod of comedy that alleviated his imprisonment. I long doubted 

 the truth of this story, but it was confirmed to me six months ago by M. 



P , intendant of the duchy of V , a man of merit and probity, 



who played upon several instruments to the utmost excellence. He told 



that being 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 an hi)ur 

 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 llicse 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." {Hist, de la Mus. i. 



The Abbe Olivet has described an amusement of Pelisson du- 

 ring his confinement in the Bastile for refusing to betray to the 

 government certain secrets intrusted to him by a friend who was 

 a leading politician at the court of Louis XIV, which consisted 

 in feeding a Spider which he discovered forming its web 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 com- 

 panion, played on a bagpipe. Little by little the Spider used 

 itself to distinguish 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 prisoner. To this account, 

 in the " History of Insects," printed by John Murray, 1830, i, 



