Show AN EAR FOR MUSIC What a Spider Was Observed to do Under the Xoise of the Tun ingfork A great many years ago a rsont r of state who Was allowed to ctf er the solitude of his dungeon by playIng play-ing on his flute discovered after awhile that every tinaeJie played a great number of spiders gathered about him Since then the liking of spiders for music has been proved I myself had often wished to play for a spider audience but I was not well enough acquainted with any musical instrument to coax a tnne out of it A scientific gsntl man of Europe gave me a valuable hint by an experiment ex-periment of his own He used t tuningork Now I can play a tun mgfoik as well ai anybody I procured pro-cured a tuningfork and then sought I oat a spider I founda handsome grand new web and though I did not see Mistress Epeira I knew she must be at home Epira diadema is her full name chougu moat persons per-sons call her a garden eoder It Is she who makes those beautiful wheellike webs which festoon the rose bushes and trees As I have said Mme Spider was not visible I knew however she must be in her gossamer parlor which ia attached to her web Here was a chance to try tuning fork music 1 rapped the fork on a stone and in a moment a soft m lo diou9 hum filled the air I touched one of the tpokea tbeb with the fork On the instant madame flew out of her parlor in great haste hesitated a moment at the outer edge of the web and then instead of going straight to the tuningfork ran to the very centre of the web When there she quickly caught hold of each of the spokes one after the other and gave it a little tug as a boy does his fishing line to see if a fish is hooked Each was passed by until she came to the spoke upon which the humming fork rested There she stopped and it was easy to see she was excited ex-cited She gave the whole web a shake then tugged at the spoke again Hum mmm still sang the fork rather faintly now however how-ever Madame was satisfied Her mind was made up Down she darted and caught the end of the fork in her arms She tried to bite into the hard metal and at the name tlmo she pun web of silk around the two prongs whch by this time had ceased vibrating I pulled the fork away and Mme Epeira retired in disappointment to the centre of the web But If she WPS diapp inted so was I for I was satisfied that it was not the music of the fork that bad attracted her Unfortunately it was altogether too probable that ehe mistook the hum of the fork for the buzz of a fiya sort of I lt1 ic DO eon bt very sweet to berTime rime after time I repeated the experiment ex-periment with the fork touching m turn each spoke of the web and each time Mme Spider was deluded into frying to capture the tuning fork It was odd that she did not learn wisdom by repeated disap pointment |