and their fuppofed Toifon. yy 



and of which we have no caufe to complain. If all our fpi- 

 djers were noxious, how many accidents would daily happeti 

 in houfes which are not kept clean, and to thofe people who 

 labour in the fields ? In that cafe it would be highly proper 

 to deftroy them. 



The brown, black, and hairy fplders, which refide in vaults 

 and cellars, as they infpire the contagious air of dirty and 

 uninhabited places, may have juices capable of doing hurt 

 when they are bruifed by accident on any naked part of the 

 body, or introduced into the ftomach. Of this, however, we 

 have no well-attefted proofs, though we know that the hairy 

 fpider is mifchievous, and that it attacks even wafps, the fcales 

 of which it breaks with its ftrong forceps. But what fball we 

 think of the popular opinion, that fpiders lofe their venom 

 in certain privileged places ? This is related of the old tower 

 of Parifet at a league from Grenoble, fituated on a mountain, 

 and called by the populace Tour Saint Verain, to exprefs the 

 tower without poifon*; where, as is faid, no ferpent, fpider, 

 or venomous animal is to be found : we are even affured, that 

 thofe carried thither immediately die. 



Spiders have often attrafted the attention of the curious 

 by their mancEuvres, their amours, and Angular mode of 

 copulation, as well as by their addrefs in fpinning their 

 webs, and forming cods, in which they inclofe their egsrs ; 

 on account of their art in repairing the accidents which hap- 

 pen to their webs, and the breaches they make in them on 

 purpofe to deliver themfelves from too fl.rong a captive they 

 have entangled ; and of their perpetual wars, and the carnage 

 they occafion, &.c. Thefe are the actions not of mere au~ 



* John Tardif, a phyfician, who wrote in i6i8, fpcaks very feriouflyof 

 the tower witlioiit venom, as one of the wonders of Dauphiny. M. Lan- 

 celot, who reduced all the wonders of this province to their juft value in 

 a memoir upon this fuhje£l inferted among thofe of the Academy of In- 

 fcriptions and Belles Lettres, Vol. VI. fays, that the tower without venom 

 is no longer worthy of that name. It is falfc that no venomous animals 

 live near it ; Serpents and fpiders are found there, as well as in other places, 

 " I have fcen fome carried thither," fays M. Lancelot, '• for the fake or 

 experiment, and it did Jiot appear that they found themfelves incommoded 

 ly the chan^jc." 



ioviata. 



