) 2 Observations upon the Tarantula, 



After having well observed the direction of the hole and the 

 position of the spider, I drove in with force, and in an ob- 

 lique direction, the blade of my knife, in such a manner as to 

 surprise the creature behind, and cut off his retreat by stop- 

 ping up his hole. I seldom missed my stroke, especially in 

 soil which was not stony. In this critical situation, either 

 the tarantula, terrified, quitted his covert to make his escape, 

 or he persisted obstinately in remaining driven up against the 

 blade of the knife. Upon this, causing the knife to make a 

 sudden sweep, I threw out both the earth and the Lycosa, and 

 seized upon the latter. By employing this method of capture, 

 I sometimes took as many as fifteen tarantulas in an hour. 



In some circumstances, when the tarantula was quite aware 

 of the deceit which I was practising, I have been not a little 

 surprised, on my pushing in the spikelet so as to even 

 touch him in his den, to see him play with it with a sort of 

 contempt, and push it back with his claws, without giving 

 himself the trouble to seek the farther end of his retreat. 



The Apulian peasants, from Baglivi's account, also hunt the 

 tarantula, imitating, at the mouth of the hole, the humming 

 of an insect, by means of an oaten stalk. " Ruricolae nostri," 

 he says, "quando eas captare volunt, ad illarum latibula 

 accedunt, tenuisque avenaceae fistulae sonum, apum murmuri 

 non absimilem modulantur, quo audito foras exit tarantula ut 

 muscas vel alia hujusmodi insecta, quorum murmur esse 

 putat, captat ; captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore." 

 (Baglivi, Opera Omnia, p. 356.) 



The tarantula, frightful as it is at first sight, especially 

 when one is impressed with the idea of danger from its bite, 

 and shy as it appears, is yet very capable of being tamed, as 

 I have many times found by experience. Here, perhaps, I 

 may be allowed to recount, in few words, the history of one 

 of these Lycosae, which I kept alive for more than five months. 

 On May 7. 1812, during my stay at Valencia, in Spain, I 

 took, without hurting him, a tarantula of tolerable size, which 

 I imprisoned in a glass covered over with paper, in which I 

 had made a square opening. In the bottom of the glass I 

 had fixed the roll of paper in which I had carried him, and 

 which was to serve him for a dwelling. I placed the glass 

 upon a table in my sleeping-room, that I might have frequent 

 opportunities of watching him. He quickly accustomed him- 

 self to his cell, and ended by becoming so familiar, that he 

 would come to eat out of my fingers the living fly that I 

 brought him. After having given his victim its death wound 

 with his jaws, he did not content himself, like most spiders, 

 with sucking the head, but bruised all its body by plunging it 



