53 



Fiff. 



19. 



make use of these except against their natural prey, viz., flies and other insects. Though 

 we have often been shewn marks and swellings on the limbs of children that mothers and 

 nurses ascribe to spiders, we have never caught a spider in the act of attacking a child, 

 nor have we found that others have done so. While we do not for a moment deny that 

 spiders may attack human beings, we should like a little more direct evidence before we 

 condemn the whole i-ace. 



The biting apparatus is shewn in fig. 19, <^- 



which represents the head and mandibles of 



Epeira vulgaris, seen from in front. When not 



in use, the claw is closed up against the mandible 



between the rows of teeth ; but, when the jaws 



are opened to bite, the claws are turned outward, 



so that their points can be stuck into anything 



between the jaws. Fig. 20 is the claw still 



more enlarged, shewing a little hole near the 



point at a, out of which is discharged the poison- 

 ous secretion of a gland in the head, fig. 11, n. The ordinary 

 use of the mandibles is for killing and crushing insects, so that 

 the soft parts can be eaten by the spider • and in this they are 

 aided by the maxillse, fig. 7, e. They will sometimes chew Fig. 20. 



an insect for hours, until it becomes a round lump of skin, with all the blood sucked out 

 of it ; this is then thrown away, the spider swallowing only such bits as may happen to be 

 sucked in with the liquid portion. 



" If let alone" — to quote Emerton — " no spiders bite anything except insects useful for 

 food ; but, when attacked and cornered, all species open their, jaws and bite if they can ; 

 their ability to do so depending on their size and the strength of their jaws. Notwith- 

 standing the number of stings and pimples that are laid to spiders, undoubted cases of 

 their biting the human skin are very rare ; and the stories of death, insanity and lameness 

 from spider-bites, are probably all untrue." 



On the opposite side we may quote the Rev. J. G. Wood, who says: "I can state 

 from personal experience that the bite of an angry spider inflicts a really painful injury, 

 not very dissimilar to the sting of a wasp. I have seen a lady's hand and arm swollen 

 so as to be hardly recognizable as belonging to the human figure, in consequence of a bite 

 inflicted by a large spider on the back of her hand." 



Many experiments have been tried to test the effect of the bites of spiders on 

 animals. Doleschall shut up small birds with two species of Mygale, both large and 

 strong spiders (see fig. 12) ; and the birds died in a few seconds after being bitten. 

 One of the spiders was left for ten days without food, and then made to bite another bird, 

 which was injured, but in six hours recovered. The same author was bitten in the 

 finger by a jumping spider. The pain was severe for a few minutes, and was followed by 

 lameness of the finger and gradually of the hand and arm, which soon went away 

 entirely. 



Bertkau allowed spiders to bite his hand. On the ends of the fingers the skin was 

 too thick, but between the fingers they easily pierced it. The bite swelled and smarted 

 for a quarter of an hour, and then itched for some time, and for a day after itched when- 

 ever rubbed, as mosquito bites will. He also experimented on flies, which died in a few 

 minutes after being bitten. 



Mr. Blackwall, to test the poison of spiders, made several large oiies bite his hand 

 and arm, and at the same time pricked himself with a needle. Although the spiders bit 

 deep enough to draw blood, the effect of their bite was exactly like that of the prick of 

 the needle. No inflammation or pain followed, and both healed immediately. 



Several spiders were placed together, and made to bite one another. The bitten 

 ones lived always some hours, and died from loss of blood ; and one spider, that had been 

 bitten in the abdomen so that some of the liver escaped and dried on the outside, lived 

 over a year, apparently in good health. 



A large spider was made to bite a wasp near the base of the right front wing, so a8 

 to disable it : but it lived thirteen hours. 



