354 
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
called Virgin!s Threads , is very clearly explained by Des Etang, in the Memoires 
de la Societe Agricole de Troyes , for 1839. 
In reference to tlie spider’s most terrible enemy, the ichneumon, some 
curious details are given in the fourth volume of the Memoirs of the American 
Society. In order to preserve it for its little ones, it does not kill its victim, 
but, if one may so speak, etherizes it by pricking it, and distilling into the 
wound a venom which apparently paralyzes it. 
My remarks on the terror of the male in his amorous advances are based 
upon those of De Geer, and Lepelletier, in the Nouveau Bulletin de la Societe 
Philomathique, pt. 07, p. 257. 
Finally, the master-work of the spider, the ingeniously constructed house 
and door of the Mygale of Corsica, has been completely described and drawn 
by an observer whom one can trust implicitly,—Audouin (followed by Walcke- 
naer, and others). 
NOTE 12.—Book iii., Chap. l. 
The Termites. —The beautiful illustrations of Smeathman would merit 
reproduction, and the translation of his book (ed. 1784), now very rarely met 
with, ought to be reprinted. The interesting additional details collected by 
Azara, Auguste, Saint-Hilaire, Castelneau, and others, might be added, so as 
to make a complete monograph. 
It is by no means a matter of slight import to recognize that the true and 
