"There is a large breed of spiders which are found very generally in the
palace of Hampton-Court. They are called there 'cardinals,' having I
suppose been first seen in Cardinal Wolsey's hall. They are full an inch
in length, and many of them of the thickness of a finger. Their legs are
about two inches long, and their body covered with a thick hair. They
feed chiefly on moths as appears from the wings of that insect being
found in great abundance under and amongst their webs. In running across
the carpet in an evening, with the shade cast from their large bodies by
the light of the lamp or candle, they have been mistaken for mice, and
have occasioned no little alarm to some of the more nervous inhabitants
of the palace. A doubt has even been raised whether the name of cardinal
has not been given to this creature from an ancient supposition that the
ghost of Wolsey haunts the place of his former glory under this shape.
Be this as it may, the spider is considered as a curiosity, and
Hampton-Court is the only place in which I have met with it."

Did Wolsey, arrayed in all his glory, ever regard a spider, or think
that his proud name would be coupled with so minute a member of the
creation?

_Rook-shooting._

"Rooks are not easily induced to forsake the trees on which they have
been bred, and which they frequently revisit after the breeding season
is over. This is shown in Hampton-Court Park, where there is an
extensive rookery amongst the fine lime-trees, and where a barbarous and
unnecessary custom prevails of shooting the young rooks. As many as a
hundred dozen of them have been killed in one season, and yet the rooks
build in the avenue, though there is a corresponding avenue close by, in
Bushy Park, which they never frequent, notwithstanding the trees are