EFFECTS AND USES OF SPIDER POISON. 273 



he stopped to pick up a flat stone under which a ground spider (probably 

 Lycosa scutulata) was nested in a little cave along witli her cocoon. The 

 spider sprang upon his finger, making a puncture like the prick of a 

 pin. The wound bled, but had no other inconvenient effect. 



My own personal experience with spider bites has been very limited, 

 as I never but once could succeed in teasing my captives to bite me. 



While roughly handling a large Epeira insularis, August 29th, 

 P^^.'^p I was struck by her in the ball of the thumb. The fangs left 

 Derience ^^^*^ slight punctures about one-eighth inch apart. At the mouth 



of each puncture on the skin was a little drop of transparent 

 colorless liquid, evidently venom, which had been extruded from the poison 

 gland. I waited a little space to allow this to enter the system, and then 

 applied the liquid to the tip of the tongue. It had an acrid taste, leaving 

 a remainder in the mouth something like the astringency of alum. Not 

 the slightest inconvenience resulted from this wound. No irritation or 

 swelling of any sort followed, and I was conscious of no pain except the 

 very slight sensation produced by the original incision, which was no greater 

 than that of the prick of a dull pin point. 



III. 



We turn now to some of the evidence that spiders do inflict a serious 

 wound. Mr. J. M. Meek, of Waiwera, New Zealand, sent the following 

 narrative of the effects of the bite of the katipo, or native sj^i- 

 Venom- der, i which appears to be a species of Latrodectus : " On the 

 ous Spi- inorning of the 24th ult., at three o'clock, my son (a man of 

 „ thirty-one years of age) was awakened from his sleep by the 



Zealand. ^^^^ °^ °^® °^ those poisonous insects, and came into our bed- 

 room about an hour afterwards, and exclaimed to his mother 

 and myself, ' I am bitten by one of those spiders that the natives have 

 so often spoken to me about, and am full of jjain. See, here it is, in the 

 bottom of the candlestick.' I looked at the insect, whose body was about 

 the size of an ordinary pea, and in color nearly approaching to black. 

 His mother, on looking at his back, saw the jDuncture the spider had made, 

 and immediately commenced sucking the wound. I proceeded to the hotel, 

 and obtained the services of Dr. Mohnbeer, when, on my return with him 

 to my house, my son was suffering the most excruciating pain in the groin, 

 the virus apparently working its way in that direction. After an applica- 

 tion of ammonia by the doctor, the pain shifted from the groin and worked 

 its way up the spine, affecting the arms and chest during the remainder of 

 the day and lasting till the following morning, my son moaning with pain 

 the whole time. 



" On Tuesday the pain became intense, the virus working its way into 



' Popular Science Gossip, 1877, page 46. 



