32 MR. J. BLACKWALL ON THE POISON OF 
ment was in progress, stood at 76°; the air throughout the day was sultry, and an exten- 
sive thunder-storm occurred in the evening. 
A highly exasperated female Epeira diadema was allowed to seize me on the inner side 
of the left fore-arm, near the carpus, on the 30th of J uly 1846. It continued for more 
than a minute to bury its fangs deeper in the flesh, and on quitting its hold voluntarily a 
little blood flowed from the wounded part, near which a puncture was made simultaneously 
with a fine needle. The air was sultry, the temperature at the time being 75°, and distant 
thunder was heard. No difference was perceptible between the results of this and the 
preceding experiment. 
rially from those of a wound made near it at the same time with a needle of an average 
size, the intensity and duration of the pain being very similar in both instances. 
On several occasions, in the month of August 1846, spiders of various species were in- 
duced, under the influence of excited feelings, to seize a piece of clean window-glass with 
their fangs, when the transparent fluid which escaped from the small aperture near their 
the Hive-bee, Apis mellifica ; or the Humble-bee, Bombus terrestris, Was so applied, a 
powerfully acrid pungent taste being the immediate consequence. A contrast equally 
secreted by the insects caused inflammation accompanied by acute pain; effects, which if 
produced at all by that secreted by the spiders, were scarcely appreciable. 
sultry weather, the pain occasioned | 
by it being little, if an » More than is due to the laceration and compression the injured 
brown fluid i i i 
uid issued copiously, and in a few minutes coagulated. The injured spider ap- 
