362 ARACHNIDA—ARANEAE CHAP. 
found to be due to the fact that the spider invariably struck the 
insect in a particular spot, at the junction of the head with the 
thorax. Bees must often wander into Tarantula’s holes, and a 
prolonged contest, though it might end in the death of the 
insect, would be certain also to result fatally for the spider. It 
has, therefore, acquired the habit of striking its foe in the one 
spot which causes instant death. When Fabre presented a bee 
to a Tarantula in such a manner that it was bitten in some other 
region, the insect survived several hours. 
A young sparrow, just ready to leave the nest, was bitten in 
the leg. The wound became inflamed, and the limb appeared to 
be paralysed, but the victim did not at first suffer in general 
health, and fed heartily; death resulted, however, on the third 
day. A mole died in thirty-six hours after the bite. 
From these experiments, Fabre came to the conclusion that 
the venom of the Tarantula was at all events too powerful to be 
entirely neghgible by man. 
Trifling causes may have a fatal effect upon a man in ill 
health, and it is quite possible that death has sometimes resulted 
from the Tarantula’s bite. Its effect upon a healthy subject, 
however, is certainly not serious. Goldsmith, 
in his Animated Nature, entirely discredits the 
current stories about this animal, saying that 
the Italian peasants impose upon credulous 
travellers by allowing themselves, for money, 
to be bitten by the Tarantula, and then feigning 
all the symptoms which are traditionally sup- 
posed to ensue. 
There is a genus of the Theridiidae, by name 
Latrodectus, whose poisonous reputation almost 
rivals that of the Tarantula. It is remarkable, 
moreover, that it is regarded as particularly 
dangerous in such widely-separated portions of 
the world as Madagascar, New Zealand, Algeria, 
Fic. 197.—Latrodectus the West Indies, and North America. These 
na g,natural spiders, strangely enough, are by no means 
particularly large or formidable in appearance. 
There are two species in Madagascar, known to the natives 
by the names of Mena-vodi and Vancoho. Vinson! describes the 
' Aranéides de la Réunion, Maurice et Madagascar, Paris, 1863, p. xlvi. 
