96 JUNGLE ISLAND 



straightway goes to it. It is the most homeHke 

 smell in all the jungle to her. When she finds 

 the tarantula and has it safe, she is ready to 

 lay her eggs near by. 



Tarantulas can inflict a very painful wound 

 which might be fatal to a person not in good 

 health, but I did not hear of any one being bitten 

 by them in the tropics, and no one mentioned 

 being afraid of them. 



As for the spiders themselves, they were 

 abundant, prowling about among the stones and 

 leaves and spinning their webs in the shade, but 

 they were dull colored and, curiously enough, I 

 could find them most easily at night. When I put 

 a headhght on my hatband and walked slowly 

 along the trail, little sparks of greenish-blue Hght 

 gleamed back at me wherever the light struck 

 the ground. These puzzled me at first. I thought 

 they must be dewdrops, but each one that I 

 stalked and caught I found to be a spider, whose 

 eyes reflected the light like diamonds. They were 

 as abundant as fireflies on a summer evening. 



These spiders never attack people, and I doubt 

 if their bite would be felt more than a pin prick. 

 I was grateful to them for their constant kilhng 

 of troublesome insects. There are so many of 

 them that they must dispose of a great many 

 mosquitoes and other nuisances. 



One of the oddest spider relatives that I saw 

 was the harvestman (Fig. 42), which we call 



