ON ARACHNIDA. 445 



of the Bastile, had so completely familiarized a spider, which 

 had taken up its abode on the edge of a chink giving light to 

 his gloomy dwelling, that it would come at the sound of an 

 instrument, and at a certain signal, to take a fly, even on the 

 knees of its teacher. It is truly painful and disgusting to 

 remember, that the inhuman governor of that castle deprived 

 the prisoner of this trifling consolation, by crushing the ani- 

 mal, even at the very moment in which it was exhibiting 

 proofs of its docility. 



Astronomers alone derive some advantages from the threads 

 of the spider: they employ the one which sustains its web, 

 and which is the strongest, for the divisions of the microno- 

 meter. It acquires, through its ductility, about a fifth more 

 than its ordinary length. 



Although these animals inspire a kind of horror in a great 

 number of persons, which is founded on the opinion that they 

 are generally venomous, they do not the less merit to be known, 

 either for this very reason itself, or in consequence of the 

 interesting facts which their economy presents to our contem- 

 plation. If they live, like so many other beings, on the fruit 

 of their rapine, they achieve this end by means very different 

 from those adopted by other races : to remain in ambush, to 

 dart like an arrow on their prey, or to catch it by speed, are 

 the ordinary means employed by carnivorous animals to 

 satisfy the wants of nature. There is nothing in all this 

 but a simple exercise of that superiority which nature has 

 gifted them with above the beings on which they subsist. 

 All their stratagems, all their instinctive combinations, are 

 reduced to the concealment of the irresistible arm of strength, 

 so that they may surprise the feeble with greater success ; 

 but the majority of the araneides have been provided by nature 

 with peculiar resources, and highly worthy of our utmost 

 attention : she has instructed them in the art of laying snares, 

 and that with a substance drawn from their own entrails. Let 

 us observe the delicate and ingenious manner in which this 



