ARANEID^ — TRUE SPIDERS. 341 



chestnut and cedar wood ;^ and the old roof at Turner's 

 Court, in Gloucestershire, four miles from Bath, which is of 

 chestnut, is said to be perfectly free from cobwebs;- hence 

 also are the cloisters of New College, and of Christ's 

 Church, in England, roofed with chestnut.^ 



A small Spider of a red color, called a Tainct in Eng- 

 land, is accounted, by the country people, a deadly poison 

 to cows and horses ; so when any of their cattle die sud- 

 denly and swell up, to account for their deaths, they say 

 they have "licked a Tainct." Browne thinks this is, most 

 probably, but a vulgar error.'* 



It is a very ancient and curious belief that there exists 

 a remarkable enmity between the Spider and serpents,^ and 

 more especially between the Spider and the toad ; and many 

 curious stories are told of the combats between these ani- 

 mals. The following, related by Erasmus, which he asserts 

 he had directly from one of the spectators, is probably the 

 most remarkable, and we insert it in the words of Dr. James : 

 "A person (a monk)*^ lying along upon the floor of his 

 chamber in the summer-time to sleep in a supine posture, 

 when a toad, creeping out of some green rushes, brought 

 just before in to adorn the chimney, gets upon his face and 

 with his feet sits across his lips. To force otf the toad, says 

 the historian, would have been accounted death to the 

 sleeper; and to leave her there, very cruel and dangerous; 

 so that upon consultation, it was concluded to find out a Spi- 

 der, which, together with her web and the window she was 

 fastened to, was brought carefully, and so contrived as to be 

 held perpendicularly to the man's face; which was no sooner 

 done but the Spider, discovering his enemy, let himself down 

 and struck in his dart, afterward betaking himself up again 

 to his web : the toad swelled, but as yet kept his station. 



1 N. and Q., 2d ed. iv. 5-23. 2 /^^^v/., iv. 421. 3 Ibid., iv. 298. 

 ^ Vulg. Err., B. iii. c. 277. Works, ii, 527. 



5 Pliny says the Spider, poised in its web, will throw itself upon 

 the head of a serpent as it lies stretched beneath the shade of the 

 tree where it has built, and with its bite pierce its brain ; such is the 

 shock, he continues, that the creature will hiss from time to time, 

 and then, seized with vertigo, coil round and round, while it iinds 

 itself unable to take to flight, or so much as to break the \Veb of the 

 Spider, as it hangs suspended above; this scene, he concludes, only 

 ends with its death. — Nat. Ilist., x. 95. 



6 Browne's Works, ii. 524, note. 



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