Arachnida. — Insects. 3809 



address, which I gave them, would occasion little or no trouble, the offer was readily 

 accepted by the miners ; who also, to express their confidence in soon being able to 

 supply the order, proposed that it would be all safe if I advanced a little cash on ac- 

 count, which however I resolutely declined doing. And now, what will the credulous 

 believers in these " toads in stone" who read the 'Zoologist' say, when they learn that 

 I visited that quarry twice during the twelve months, in order to fetch the toads which 

 never came by rail ? I always found the men there blasting tons of new rock, splitting 

 stones for every building purpose, yet dry-throated and sullen ; for, alas ! most unac- 

 countably during that long twelve months they found plenty of holes— not toad-holes 

 — in the sandstone, but the reptiles had been banished as effectually as ever they were 

 from the Emerald Isle. — John Plant ; Salford Museum, October 21, 1852. 



Skin of a Large Snake. — I beg to forward the dimensions of a snake's skin which 

 I found this afternoon on the heath, in the position in which it was cast ; it measured 

 4 feet 2 inches in length, and from the depth of the skin, the snake must have been 

 nearly 6 inches in circumference at the thickest part of the body, being by far the lar- 

 gest I ever saw or heard of. — Octavius Pickard- Cambridge ; Bloxworth House, near 

 Blandford, Dorset, November 8, 1852. 



Note on the " Singular Abstinence of a Spider." — I have been much interested by 

 Mr. Pickard-Cambridge's account of the spider which lived for eighteen months in 

 his bird-case, as it is assumed, without food. (Zool. 3766). It is, however, perfectly 

 certain from Mr. C.'s account, that the spider by some means got food, although how 

 it did so escaped his observation. Although some animals can exist for a very con- 

 siderable' time without food, it is equally certain that none can increase in size without 

 it. The growth of all living things is essentially due to a proper supply of aliment, 

 and no increase of matter can take place in any living thing unless the material is 

 supplied from without. Ex nihilo nihil Jit is as true as the existence of matter itself. 

 An opposite view can only be supported upon the assumption of a special miracle, 

 or supernatural interference, by which matter is created ; but this assumption in a case 

 like the present is unphilosophical and cannot be supported. It is much easier to be- 

 lieve that other insects besides the spider were enclosed with the skin, upon which it 

 fed as long as they continued to exist, than to believe that a special creation of matter 

 took place in this individual case. The probability, however, was, that the skin was 

 soft when cased, and continued, when excluded from the air, to retain sufficient nutri- 

 ment to support the spider for most of the time mentioned. So long as this source of 

 food existed, the spider lived and throve, when it was withdrawn, it shrivelled away 

 and died. — C. R. Bree ; Stowmarket, February, 1853. 



Inquiry respecting certain appendages to the Haustellum of Diurnal Lepidoptera. — 

 Under this head (Zool. 3775), Mr. A. R. Hogan records that he has more than once 

 observed "certain little yellow excrescences on the haustella of Diurnal Lepidoptera," 

 and asks for an explanation. In the second volume of the ' Transactions of the Entomo- 

 logical Society,' I find recorded that at the meeting, August 7, 1847, Mr. Bainbridge 

 XI. N 



