402 HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



The superstition of the tarantula dance in southern 

 Europe is curious and interesting. The victim of the bite, 

 so the story goes, suffers little pain at first ; but after a few 

 hours becomes very sick, breathes with difficulty, and 

 grows weak and faint. Then the patient is seized with a 

 form of madness, weeps, dances, laughs, cries, skips about, 

 passes through all sorts of contortions and finally, unless 

 relieved, expires. The prevailing specific for this poison 

 is music. At the sound of music the victim begins the 

 peculiar movements known as the "tarentula dance." 

 The dance is continued until the dancer breaks out in a 

 profuse perspiration which forces out the venom. He 

 then falls into a restful sleep from which he eventually 

 awakes weak but relieved. 



Eugene Murray-Aaron gives an interesting account of a 

 bite by one of the large trap-door spiders, closely related 

 to the American tarantula, while he was collecting in the 

 West Indies. He says : " The creature was lurking in the 

 dried sheaths of a bamboo clump that I was cutting down 

 for building purposes, and it bit me twice on the back 

 of the hand before I saw him (or rather her). From this 

 bite, on which I used the usual remedies, I suffered more or 

 less for four days and experienced slight pains for nearly a 

 month. ... I undoubtedly felt the symptoms that give 

 rise to these stories (stories of the tarantula dance). 

 For perhaps a half hour, about four days after the bite, 

 I was afflicted with an utterly irresistible twitching of the 

 muscles of the legs and arms, and the spasmodic action of 

 the fingers, eyelids, and tongue was most distressing. 

 Only the utmost exertion of my self-control kept me from 

 making more of an exhibition of myself than I did." 



On the other hand, Herbert Smith, who has traveled 



