108 D ISJOUVIL IN PRISON.

miraculous cause of my liberty and safety.” La-
treille died on the 6th February 1832, and was
buried in Pére la Chaise, where a handsome monu-
ment is erected to his memory. It is in the form
of a truncated obelisk, surmounted by a bronze bust
of Latreille; and on one side is engraved a highly
magnified figure of the Necrobia ruficollis.

An escape scarcely less wonderful than that of
Latreille, and effected by similar means, is told of
M. Quatremer d’Isjouvil, a Frenchman by birth,
who was adjutant-general in Holland, and took an
active part on the side of the Dutch patriots when
they revolted against the Stadtholder. On the
arrival of the Prussian army under the Duke of
Brunswick, he was immediately taken, tried, and,
having been condemned to twenty-five years’ im-
prisonment, was incarcerated in a dungeon at
Utrecht, where he remained eight years.

Spiders, which are the constant, and frequently
the sole occupants of such places, were almost the
only living creatures which d’Isjouvil saw in his
prison. Partly to beguile the tedious monotony of
his life, and partly from a taste which he had im-
bibed for natural history, he began to seek employ-
ment, and eventually found amusement in w atching
the habits and operations of his tiny fellow-prison-
ers. He soon remarked that certain actions of the
spiders were intimately connected with approaching