FALSE PA11ASITES. 103 



that in this case too little reference has been made to tke follow- 

 ing circumstance. It may probably happen that in particular 

 cases the bite of the tarantula may produce violent local irrita- 

 tion, and that perhaps it was observed accidentally by the people 

 that violent dancing and keeping up the perspiration in bed 

 quickly healed these local symptoms. To excite a desire of 

 dancing in those who were bitten, and thus to obtain a perspira- 

 tion, it is well known that two melodies were played the Taran- 

 tola and the Pastorale. Subsequently this circumstance was 

 confused or forgotten, and in course of years it came to pass that 

 as soon as any one was bitten by a tarantula, they played to 

 him and he was obliged to dance. Hence it might easily hap- 

 pen that people were unable to imagine a tarantula-bite without 

 its being followed by music, and in consequence by dancing. 

 Thus the bite and the remedy came to be so mixed up together, 

 that the people, and with them Ferrante, could no longer distin- 

 guish between the two. The bite is a product of the animal, 

 the dancing a product of the music, as we may see every day in 

 ball-rooms. 4. The bees, and humble-bees, wasps, and hornets 

 (order Hymenoptera ; series of the bees = Apida, families Apis 

 and Bombus ; series of the wasps, family Vespida, sub-families 

 Polistes [paper-wasp = Polistes nidulans} , Vespa [yulgaris = the 

 common wasp, V. crabro the hornet, and V. holsatica and 

 britannica, of which the latter are probably identical]). 5. The 

 ants (order Hymenoptera ; series of the ants, family Formicida ; 

 sub-family Formica). 



Of course we need not speak here in detail of the caterpillars, 

 toads, and snakes, which may accidentally wound and poison 

 men with their bite ; nor of the lizards, if any of them are really 

 venomous. They would not be mentioned here at all, if the 

 popular belief had not regarded some of the last-mentioned ani- 

 mals, as well as salamanders, frogs, and tadpoles, certain caterpillars, 

 centipedes, beetles, &c., as actual parasites of man, and supposed 

 that these animals, nay, even some species of fishes, such as the 

 eels, could carry on a parasitic existence in the interior of the 

 human intestine. Unfortunately the medical men have given 

 their assistance to this nonsense ; and I myself have seen one 

 allowing himself to be fooled by a patient with an eel, and another 

 with a frog. With such follies there are only two ways of deal- 

 ing jest and scientific experiment. The former has been done, 

 and many perhaps are acquainted with the satirical tale in which 



