320 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



Another question which requires to be established 

 experimentally is the amount of truth there is in the evil 

 reputation which these Arachnids have for indicting very 

 painful and even dangerous bites. Lichtenstein (/.c.) has 

 endeavoured to show that certain passages found in the 

 ancient classics refer to Galeodes. The " mice " which 

 plagued the Philistines (i Sam. v. vi.) when they cap- 

 tured and kept the "ark of the covenant" must, according 

 to this writer, have been the terrible Galeodes, while the 

 ■*' emerods " with which they were also plagued referred to 

 the sores caused by the bites of these animals, chiefly on 

 the pudenda. Among other arguments in support of this 

 interesting interpretation of the ancient Hebrew story the 

 same author asserts that Galeodes still inflict similar bites 

 either in the same place, especially of females, or on the 

 lips of people or animals sleeping on the ground. Again, a 

 long passage is quoted from Agatharchides to the effect 

 that a populous district on the shores of the Indian 

 ocean was deserted owing to the swarms of these Arachnids 

 that appeared after a very long rainy season. 



On the other hand, Olivier disbelieved the awful reports 

 of the Arabs, who were terrified at the sight of the 

 Galeodes which appeared in the tents at night, and who 

 told yarns, each more horrible than the last, as to their 

 dangerous bites. He admitted however that if the animals 

 did bite, with suc/i jsiws the results would probably be painful. 

 Pallas says that people are bitten "accidentally" by the 

 animals getting under their clothes and relates a few such 

 cases. Dufour also records a case of a man in Algeria 

 being bitten by a Galeodes that got under his clothes. The 

 descriptions given by these two authors of the effects of the 

 bites, the accuracy of which there is no reason to doubt, 

 are enough to account for the exaggerated terror with 

 which these animals are commonly regarded by the 

 natives in the countries where they occur. This is 

 probably the correct view of the case, and is quite in accord, 

 on the one hand, with the statement that the animals are 

 perfectly harmless, and, on the other, with the description 

 of their ferocity when molested. 



