Tarantula

“ When it discovers a tarantula it flies "in circles in the air, around its victim. The spider, as if knowing its fate, stands up and makes a show of fighting, but the resistance is very feeble and of no avail. The spider's foe soon discovers a favourable moment and darts upon the tarantula, whom it wounds with its sting, and again commences flying in circles." The natural retreat of this huge spider, Mygale hentzii, is in holes in the ground, and this account does not inform us whether the spider allows itself to be overcome when in its nest, or is only attacked when out of its retreat. ”

“ Yet here we have the young Tarantula, wishing to leave her mother and to travel far away by the easiest and swiftest methods, suddenly becoming an enthusiastic climber. We know her object. From on high, finding a wide space beneath her, she sends a thread floating. It is caught by the wind, and carries her hanging to it. We have our aeroplanes; she too possesses her flying-machine. She makes it in her hour of need, and when the journey is finished thinks no more about it. ”

“ There is a variety of tarantula in our Southern States, called “lycosa Carolinensis” by naturalists, which is even larger than its European namesake, being about two inches long, and having legs spreading at least four inches. It has whitish legs, white sides, whitish dots and lines on the belly, and is of a mouse color on top and black or dark colored underneath. Like the Italian tarantula, it spins no web, takes its prey by pursuit, and lives in holes lined with a sort of silk. It is peculiar in carrying its young on its back, and it seldom bites. ”

“ The derivation of the word tarantula, from the city of Tarentum, or the river Thara, in Apulia, on the banks of which this insect is said to have been most frequently found, or, at least, its bite to have had the most venomous effect, seems not to be supported by authority. So much for the name of this famous spider, which, unless we are greatly mistaken, throws no light whatever upon the nature of the disease in question. ”

“ For all answer the gray-haired woman, who was evidently the girl's mother, fell at my feet, and clasping my knees, cried in a voice broken by sobs, "O good sir, kind sir, my girl has been bitten by the tarantula! Nothing in the world can save her but you, if with your playing you can make her rise up and dance!" ”

“ There is also a Spider of the like Nature with the Tarantula in the West-Indies, which Fr. Hernandez (49) describes by the Name of Hoitztocatl, or the Pricking Spider; and says, that its Bite induces Madness.
In the Summer Months, especially when the Heats are greatest, as in the Dog-Days, the Tarantula creeping among the Corn in the Fields, bites the Mowers and Passengers; in the Winter it lurks in Holes, and is scarcely seen; and if it does bite then, it is not venomous, neither does it induce any ill Symptoms. ”

“ When I had the Spiders in my laboratory, I sometimes neglected to feed them for weeks at a time, and they were none the worse for it. After they have fasted a long time, they do not pine away, but are smitten with a wolf-like hunger.
In her youth, before she has a burrow, the Tarantula earns her living in another manner. Clad in gray like her elders, but without the black-velvet apron which she receives on reaching the marriageable age, she roams among the stubby grass. ”

“ This is true hunting. When the right kind of game heaves in sight, the Spider pursues it, drives it from its shelters, follows it hot-foot. The fugitive gains the heights, and makes as though to fly away. He has not the time. With an upward leap, the Tarantula grabs him before he can rise.
I am charmed with the quick way in which my year-old Spider boarders seize the Flies that I provide for them. In vain does the Fly take refuge a couple of inches up, on some blade of grass. With a sudden spring into the air, the Spider pounces on her prey. No Cat is quicker in catching her Mouse. ”

“ There are two animals to which the Italians give the name Tarantula: the one is a species of Lizard, whose bite is reputed mortal, found about Fondi, Cajeta, and Capua; the other is a large Spider, found in the fields in several parts of Italy, and especially at Tarentum—hence the name. “Such as are stung by this creature (the Aranea Tarantula) ,” says Misson, “make a thousand different gestures in a moment; for they weep, dance, tremble, laugh, grow pale, cry, swoon away, and, after a few days of torment, expire, if they be not assisted in time. ”

“ Instantly he shouted:
"Turn out, boys—the tarantulas is loose!"
No warning ever sounded so dreadful. Nobody tried, any longer, to leave the room, lest he might step on a tarantula. Every man groped for a trunk or a bed, and jumped on it. Then followed the strangest silence—a silence of grisly suspense it was, too—waiting, expectancy, fear. It was as dark as pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those fourteen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks and beds, for not a thing could be seen. ”

“ There we remained for three days, Timoteo sighing for Pegwaomi, and the wind sighing still louder, to our discomfort. Everything we had was saturated. Sleeping on the soaking ground, the poisonous tarantula spiders crept over us. These loathsome creatures, second only to the serpent, are frequently so large as to spread their thick, hairy legs over a six-inch diameter. ”

“ Their weapons are almost equal: the Bee's dart can bear comparison with the Spider's fangs; the sting of the first seems to me as formidable as the bite of the second. How comes it that the Tarantula always has the upper hand and this moreover in a very short conflict, whence she emerges unscathed? There must certainly be some cunning strategy on her part. Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot believe that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is enough to produce so prompt a catastrophe. ”

“ I recommend them to future Tarantula-hunters. I insert into the burrow, as far down as I can, a stalk with a fleshy spikelet, which the Spider can bite into. I move and turn and twist my bait. The Tarantula, when touched by the intruding body, contemplates self-defence and bites the spikelet. A slight resistance informs my fingers that the animal has fallen into the trap and seized the tip of the stalk in its fangs. I draw it to me, slowly, carefully; the Spider hauls from below, planting her legs against the wall. It comes, it rises. ”

“ To hatch its eggs, the bird covers them with the quilt of its breast; it strains them to the furnace of its heart. The Tarantula turns hers in front of the hearth of hearths: she gives them the sun as an incubator. ”

“ He also believes that striking symptoms may be simulated or artificially induced by patients in order to attract interest, or because they have been assured that the bite, under all circumstances, caused tarantism.
The so-called Russian tarantula, Trochosa singoriensis (fig. 7) , is much larger than the Italian species, and is much feared. Kobert carried out a series of careful experiments with this species and his results have such an important bearing on the question of the venomous nature of the tarantula that we quote his summary. ”

“ The male is approximately the same size as the female, but in neither sex does the length of the body surpass three-quarters of an inch. Like all spiders, the tarantula possesses poison glands in its jaws, but there is not a particle of trustworthy evidence that the secretion of these glands is more virulent than that of other spiders of the same size, and the medieval belief that the bite of the spider gave rise to tarantism has long been abandoned. ”

“ Tarantulas are night prowlers; they do all their hunting after dark, dig their holes and, indeed, carry on all the various businesses of their life in the night-time. The occasional one found walking about in daytime has made a mistake, someway, and he blunders around quite like an owl in the sunshine.
All of a sudden, while Mary and I were smiling at this too early bird of a tarantula, he went up on his hind legs in fighting attitude, and at the same instant down darted a great tarantula hawk, that is, a Pepsis wasp. ”

“ The reason of the Tarantula’s hesitation is plain. An insect of this kind cannot be seized recklessly: the Tarantula who missed her strike by biting at random would do so at the risk of her life. Stung in any other place, the Bee might live for hours and manage to sting her foe with her poisoned dagger. The Spider is well aware of this. In the safe shelter of her threshold she watches for the right moment; she waits for the big Bee to face her, when the neck is easily grabbed. ”

“ It is impossible to appear unconscious of long-legged terrors that silently drop on your head, or shiny, nodular ones that rush at your face and neck with a buzz in the steamy evenings in the rains. A tarantula on the towel-horse, especially if it is standing on tiptoe, is too palpable, and no one can pretend not to see it there. ”

“ The big hairy tarantulas are very numerous there, although one rarely sees them because they mostly stay in their holes in daytime. There are tarantula hawks there too, enormous black and rusty-red wasps with wings stretching three inches from tip to tip. Mary and I saw one of these giant wasps swoop down on a big tarantula just as he came out of his hole one evening after sundown, and that was a battle to remember, and it had a [Pg 7] very strange ending. ”

“ Every stray dog or resting bird that enlivened our walk delighted the child. When we came to some anthills she grew flushed and excited as she built a fence about the thriving city to protect it against the invasion of tarantulas.
Ever since Antonio, the Mexican, had unearthed a tarantula one morning in the corner of the orchard, Marjorie had regarded the ugly yet comparatively harmless creature as California's one demon. ”

“ André is not the only man of science who attributes awful effects to the bite of the tarantula. Baglini, a man of considerable eminence, maintains [Pg 347] that not only the bite causes the patient to dance, but that the insect itself is readily excitable by music.
The properties attributed to the tarantula, in modern times, are not borne out by the testimony of the ancients. ”

“ My Tarantula surrounds the mouth of her hole with a simple curb, a mere collection of tiny pebbles, sticks, and silk; the American ones fix a movable floor to theirs, a round shutter with a hinge, a groove, and a set of bolts. When one of these Tarantulas comes home, the lid drops into the groove and fits so exactly one cannot tell where it joins. If any one from outside tries to raise the trap-door, the Spider pushes the bolt,—that is to say, plants her claws into certain holes on the opposite side to the hinge,—props herself against the wall, and holds the door firmly. ”

“ Probably the common south European species, Lycosa narbonensis, has as good a claim to the honour as any. The confusion has been increased by extending the name to spiders of quite a different family. Eurypelma hentzii, one of the Aviculariidae, is commonly known as the Tarantula in America.
The superstition of the tarantula dance is well known. The bite of the spider was supposed to induce a species of madness which found its expression—and its cure—in frantic and extravagant contortions of the body. If the dance was not sufficiently frenzied, death ensued. ”

“ On the one hand, therefore, the Tarantula has acquired the habit of striking the wasp in the only point where its blow is instantaneously fatal, while on the other the wasp, with a different object in view, has been led to select the precise spot where its sting will disable without immediately destroying the spider. The latter case is, if anything, the more extraordinary, as the insect can hardly have any recollection of its larval tastes, and yet it stores up for progeny, which it will never see, food which is entirely abhorrent to itself in its imago state. ”

“ The females show considerable maternal care for their offspring, and sometimes sit upon their egg sacs; and the species, although somewhat fierce and combative amongst themselves, are capable of being tamed.
Tarantism.⁠The tarantula has given its name to one of those dancing manias which overspread Europe during the Middle Ages. The bite of the spider threw the sufferer into a depressed state of melancholy, accompanied by various nervous disorders. ”

“ The Italian tarantula (Lycosa tarantula) . After Kobert.
The extreme to which unreasonable fear of the bites of spiders influenced the popular mind was evidenced by the accepted explanation of the remarkable dancing mania, or tarantism, of Italy during the Middle Ages. This was a nervous disorder, supposed to be due to the bite of a spider, the European tarantula (fig. 4) , though it was also, at times, attributed to the bite of the scorpion. ”

“ Before visiting the cobras and the pythons, we made our way to the Insect House, with some design of making trial of the tarantula spider, our violinist having a theory of his own that spiders had a liking for harmonious sound; partly, too, from a mixed 117feeling that the tarantula, whose bite makes others dance, should itself have a feeling for musical numbers. Apparently the tarantula’s powers are objective only, for it remained in its corner sulky and unmoved. But a nest of scorpions was less indifferent. ”

“ The Tarantula has a riskier job. She has only her courage and her fangs, and she must leap upon her dangerous prey and kill it quickly. She must know exactly where to strike, for, strong though her poison is, I cannot believe it would kill the prey instantly at any point where she happens to bite. She must bite in some spot of vital importance.
A FIGHT WITH A CARPENTER-BEE
Instead of with the Bumble-bee, who enters the Spider’s burrow, I wish to make the Tarantula fight with some other insect, who will stay above ground. ”