LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 149 
mother might have preserved her own life by 
escaping, but she rather preferred being buried 
alive with her treasure, and it was only by force 
that Bonnet withdrew her from the danger, and 
though he pushed her away with a twig, she 
still remained on the spot, and appeared incon- 
solable. 
"What can be more astonishing than the dis- 
coveries made by Leeuwenhoek's microscope ? 
He calculates that the threads of the smallest 
spider, some of w T hich are not larger than a 
grain of sand, are so fine that four millions of 
them would not equal one hair of the beard. 
Each of these threads is formed of four thou- 
sand others, the fineness of which it is im- 
possibe to conceive ; but I should first describe 
the spinning apparatus. Under the spider's ab- 
domen there are four or six little orifices or 
spinners, every one of which is furnished with 
a multitude of tubes, so numerous and so ex- 
quisitely fine, that Reaumur counted a thousand 
in a space not bigger than a pin's point. From 
each of these proceeds an inconceivably fine 
thread, which immediately unites with all the 
rest. Four of these threads again unite lower 
down, and form the common one we see in the 
webs, which though sometimes nearly invisible, 
