SPIDER. 
478 
pleasure; and if it should draw from all the fora- 
mina at once the thread might consist of many 
hundred distinct filaments. The eyes, which are 
situated on the upper part or front of the thorax, 
are eight in number, placed at a small distance 
from each other, and having the appearance of 
the stemmata in the generality of insects. The 
fangs or piercers, with which the animal wounds 
its prey, are strong, curved, sharp-pointed, and 
each furnished on the inside, near the tip, with a 
small oblong hole or slit, through which is evacu- 
ated a poisonous fluid into the wound made by 
the point itself, these organs operating in minia- 
ture on the same principle with the fangs in 
poisonous serpents. The feet are of a ■ highly 
curious structure; the two claws with which each 
is terminated being furnished on its under side 
with several parallel processes resembling the teeth 
of a comb, and enabling the animal to dispose 
and manage with the utmost facility the disposi- 
tion of the threads in its web, &c. 
Aranea Tarantula^ or Tarantula Spider, of which 
so many idle recitals have been detailed in the 
works of the learned, and which even to this day 
continues, in some countries, to exercise the faith 
and ignorance of the vulgar, is a native of the 
warmer parts of Italy and other warm European 
regions, and is generally found in dry and sunny 
plains. It is the largest of all the European spiders, 
and is of a browm colour, w ith the back of the 
abdomen marked liy a row' of trigonal black sjiots 
with wiiitish edges, and the legs marked beneath by 
