A REMINISCENCE. 
219 
and expires. I saw this incident one day at Lucerne. Chloroform, 
whose action the stag-beetle had endured for fourteen days without suc¬ 
cumbing, immediately—at the first contact—overpowered the spider. 
Yet the victim was a large one, and I found it engaged in eating a gnat. 
I wished to experiment, and poured on it a single drop. The effect 
was terrible. Nothing more pitiful could be seen in a case of human 
asphyxia. It tumbled over, raised itself, and then swooned; all its 
supports failed it, and its limbs appeared disjointed. One thing was 
very pathetic—that in this supreme moment the fecundity of its bosom , 
became apparent; in its agony, its tubercles sent forth their little 
cloudy woof, so that you might have believed it to be working even 
in death. 
I felt oppressed, and in the hope that the fresh air would perhaps 
revive it, I placed it on my window-sill; but it was no longer itself. 
I know not how the effect was produced ; but it seemed to have melted 
away, and nothing of it remained but its skeleton. The vanished sub¬ 
stance had left but its shadow, which the wind bore away to the 
neighbouring lake. 
