I885.J 
Correspondence. 
627 
b°w of the ship startled it. The weather was good, with a slight 
W m' °f W | ln u the Emblem scarcely making four knots.” 
l , Ing th r at th , e existence of large marine serpents is 
mply a question of evidence, and cannot be pronounced impos- 
r r ° n a P r \°\ l grounds, I find the above narrative not quite 
l^ee from suspicion. A head only the size of that of a calf would 
be very ill adapted for fangs “ about 4 inches in length.” 
Serpent- Hunter. 
THE EXTERMINATION OF INSECTS. 
In your recent article, “ A Glance at Epping Forest,” I susnecft 
that you are a shade too severe on the Conservators. Their 
doings have not been always judicious from the Naturalist’s point 
0 view; but the drainage of the Forest cannot have been the 
sole cause of the disappearance of certain Lepidoptera, since a 
similar extirpation is going on at other places within an easy 
distance of London. Ihus a few years ago Zygeena filipendulce 
was not uncommon about Edmonton. EuchSlia jacobel t Z 
disappeared from some of its former haunts. Darenth Wood 
ormerly the Mecca of colledtors, is now often “ drawn blank.” 
1 suspedt the mam cause of the mischief is the number of boys 
who have been led to take up not Entomology, but insedt-hunting 
by the perusal of a certain cheap natural-history paper. 
Zeta. 
are spiders shortsighted? 
From the fact that a spider, especially an Epeira, detedts the 
exact locality of an insect caught in its web by applying its feet 
in succession to the radial lines, it has been inferred that the 
creatures must be very shortsighted. A fadt observed this 
morning makes me doubt this view. In a neighbour’s garden a 
line supported on posts had been put up yesterday, for the pur 
pose of drying linen, &c., and had been left out all nmht On 
looking over some trees trained against the wall of my warden 
and distant about 5 feet from the line, I saw that several Epeiras 
had carried their webs from the tops of these trees, and from the 
wall itself to the line. If spiders are shortsighted, how did they 
become informed of the existence of the line at a convenient 
distance for their spinning operations ? 
A Suburban. 
