The idea of putting an insect inside a hollow object, like an apple, blown egg, gourd, ring, etc., to make it move mysteriously was recorded in a late fifteenth century notebook by Thomas Betson, a monk at Syon Abby in Middlesex. This notebook is at St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. E.6, according to Richard Kieckhefer in Magic in the Middle Ages, 1989, p. 91. Betson used a beetle in a hollowed apple. Early Japanese books feature eels in gourds for the purpose. Another early source for this trick is Horatio Napolitana's 1585 pamphlet, Libretto de Secreti Noblissimi et Alcuni Giocchi con Destrezza di Man, Cose Vere e Experientate. This makes David Hoy's insect in a Ping-pong ball, in the early 1960s, a very late entry.