HÉBERT. Autograph letter (bouillon) [to Buffon]. 4 pp. in-4. - Lot 74

Lot 74
Go to lot
Estimation :
1000 - 1200 EUR
Result without fees
Result : 2 500EUR
HÉBERT. Autograph letter (bouillon) [to Buffon]. 4 pp. in-4. - Lot 74
HÉBERT. Autograph letter (bouillon) [to Buffon]. 4 pp. in-4. No place or date (ca. 1778). Very interesting letter to Buffon on spiders. He thanks him for sending the edition of Histoire des oiseaux offered to Madame Hébert. "The present is too interesting in itself, and the hand that offers it adds infinitely to it". He recalls his health problems, the tingling in his arm that cripples him. "On the third day, I found myself totally deprived of the use of my right hand, to the point of not being able to sign my name". Then he shares his observations on spiders. "Remain sir, in your persuasion, these spinner spiders are blind and the vagrant species see very well. If the latter don't make webs, it's not that they can't spin, it's that they don't need to. I have not seen the mating of domestic spiders, but several times that of the garden spider and another small green spider which applies its web to a tree leaf, but as this mating only lasts a few seconds, it seems impossible to discover how it takes place. I've hitherto believed that the meeting of the male with his female was purely fortuitous, but you've given me cause to think again, and I remember noticing several times that in autumn, almost all the spiders you meet along the walls are followed by a thread. All these threads that you see in this season coming together in white flakes are produced by two or three species of small vagrant spiders that only spin in this unique circumstance. I think I'm sure that the reunion takes place in the anterior parts, and only dissection and the help of the most excellent microscopes could uncover this mystery, for it's a matter of two or three seconds, and there are preliminaries that last several days [...]".
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue