OX ARACHXIDA. 
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 oi 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 ol laying snares, 
and that with a substance drawn from their own entrails. Let 
us observe the delicate and ingenious manner in which this 
