Amongst the insects was the silk-spider, a large arachnid of sulphur-yellow tint, with three black transverse bars. It weaves no web, but spins a thread of the strongest texture and the richest golden hue. I had sent from Fernando Po several pounds of this fine silk, intending to experiment upon it in a veil or lace shawl; and afterwards I learned that the Empress Eugenie had a dress made of it, which cost a fabulous number of francs. Bacon and other old writers talk of 'spider's silk' like gathering moonbeams. [Footnote: The _Ananse_ or _Agya ananse_ (father spider), as the Oji-speaking peoples call the insect, is with them either a creator of man (corresponding so far with the scarabeus in the Nile valley) or a representative of the evil principle. Bosman (Letter xvii.), describing a 'great hideous hairy species,' says, 'The negroes call this spider _ananse_, and believe that the first men were made by that creature; and, notwithstanding some of them by conversation with the Europeans are better informed, there are yet a great number that remain of that opinion, out of which folly they are not to be reasoned.' The people have a number of fables called _Anansesem_, such as _Spider and Spiderson and the Three Ghosts_; in these spider-stories the insect, like the fox with us, is the most intelligent of animals (the late Rev. J. Zimmermann's _Akra or Ga Grammar_, Stuttgart, 1858). It is represented as speaking through the nose like the local 'bogy,' and its hobbling gait is imitated by the story-teller. Another superstition is that the Ananu (the Akra form of the word) injures children sleeping in the same room with it. At Fernando Po I found another valuable spider which preys upon cockroaches. When a cruiser was particularly afflicted by the _blatta_, a couple of these insects would effectually clear chests and drawers in a few days. There are other species, _Entekuma_, &c.]