This perhaps may seem to be rather a fanciful suggestion for a scientifically trained writer to offer. But it is not wholly fanciful, since it has some support at least from theory (whatever that may be worth), and even from some considerations based upon solid fact.
As to theory, we have already seen how Fabre arrived at the conclusion that the olfactory sense of certain insects is capable of receiving stimuli to which we are insensitive, stimuli which he surmised to be of the nature of an ethereal vibration. Consider too the following facts.
It is well known that there are people who have an instinctive dislike of cats. The late Lord Roberts was one, and it is said of him that he was aware of the presence of his béte noire before he caught sight of it. How was he made aware ?
The same instinctive aversion is felt by some people towards spiders. I myself know of one, a young girl, who cannot sleep if her bedroom contains one of these creatures. She, like Lord Roberts feels without knowing how when a spider is near her.
Here also is a letter to a newspaper from a correspondent telling the same tale :
“Sir,
“I notice with interest that the official photographer who is to accompany Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Quest expedition has an intense dislike of spiders. Can any of your readers
