Live and grow without food. Out of fifty spiders produced on the last day of August, and which were kept entirely without food, three lived to the 8th of February following, and even visibly increased in bulk. Was it from the effluvia arising from the dead bodies of their companions that they lived so long? Other spiders were kept in glass vessels without food, from the 15th of July till the end of January. During that time they cast their skins more than once, as if they had been well fed.--_Redi, Generat. Insect._ Spiders are excellent barometers: if the ends of their webs are found branching out to any length, it is a sure sign of favourable weather: if, on the contrary, they are found short, and the spider does not attend to repairing it properly, bad weather may be expected.--_Times._ * * * * * SWARMING OF BEES. The ingenious President of the Horticultural Society, Mr. T.A. Knight, has been led from repeated observation to infer, that, in the swarming of bees, not a single labourer emigrates without previously inspecting its proposed future habitation, as well as the temporary stations of rest where their numbers collect soon after swarming.--_Philosophical Magazine._ * * * * * THE CHAMELEON'S ANTIPATHY TO BLACK. Whatever may be the cause, the fact seems to be certain, that the chameleon has an antipathy to things of a black colour. One, which Forbes kept, uniformly avoided a black board which was hung up in the chamber; and, what is most remarkable, when it was forcibly brought before the black board, it trembled violently, and assumed a black colour.--_Oriental Mem_. * * * * * RULES FOR THE WEATHER. A wet summer is always followed by a frosty winter; but it happens occasionally that the cold extends no farther. Two remarkable instances of this occurred in 1807-8 and 1813-14. With these exceptions, every frosty winter has been followed by a cold summer. The true cause of cold, or rather the direct cause, is to be found in the winter excess of west wind, every winter with excess of west wind being followed by a cold summer; and if there is no cold before, or during a first excess, then a second excess of west wind in winter occasions a still colder summer than the first. It also appears, by repeated experience, that cold does not extend to more than two years at a time. Again, if the winter excess of east wind be great, in the first instance, the winters will be mild, and followed by mild summers; while the summer excess of east wind is itself, in the first instance, always mild; but uniformly followed by cold winters and cold summers, which continue, more or less, for one or two years, according to circumstances.--_Mackenzie, Syst. of the Weather_. * * * * * SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS * * * * * PERIODICAL LITERATURE.