The Life of the Spider 



tie surprised, when I pushed the stalk far 

 enough down to twist it round her hiding- 

 place, to see her play with the spikelet more 

 or less contemptuously and push it away with 

 her legs, without troubling to retreat to the 

 back of her lair. 



'The Apulian peasants, according to 

 BagliviV account, also hunt the Tarantula 

 by imitating the humming of an insect with 

 an oat-stalk at the entrance to her burrow. 

 I quote the passage : 



' "Ruricola nostri quando eas captare vo- 

 lunt, ad illorum latibula accedunt, tenuisque 

 avenacea fistula" sonum, apum murmuri non 

 absimilem, modulantur. Quo audito, ferox 

 exit Tarentula ut muscas vel alia hujus modi 

 insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, capiat; 

 captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore." 2 



'The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, 

 especially when we are filled with the idea 



Giorgio Baglivi (1669-1707), professor of anatomy 

 and medicine at Rome. — Translator's Note. 



2 "When our husbandmen wish to catch them, they ap- 

 proach their hiding-places, and play on a thin grass pipe, 

 making a sound not unlike the humming of bees. Hear- 

 ing which, the Tarantula rushes out fiercely that she 

 may catch the flies or other insects of this kind, whose 

 buzzing she thinks it to be; but she herself is caught by 

 her rustic trapper." 



48 



