THE AERIAL WEB SPINNERS 165 



It is worthy of mention, in connection with these incidents, 

 that the belief that a special enmity exists between spiders and 

 serpents is very ancient. Pliny says that the spider, poised in its 

 web, will throw itself upon the head of a serpent as it is stretched 

 beneath the shade of a tree, and with its bite will pierce its brain. 

 Such is the shock that the creature will hiss from time to time 

 and then, seized with vertigo, will coil round and round, but 

 finds itself unable to take flight or even to break the web in 

 which it is entangled. This scene, concludes the author, only 

 ends with the serpent's death. 24 



One of the more spectacular feats of Theridion reported by 

 McCook was the subduing of a small mouse: 



A very curious and interesting spectacle was to be seen Mon- 

 day afternoon in the office of Mr. P. C. Cleaver's livery stable 

 in this city. Against the wall of the room stands a tolerably tall 

 desk, and under this was a small spider, not larger than a com- 

 mon pea, who had constructed an extensive web reaching to the 

 floor. About half-past eleven o'clock, Monday forenoon, it was 

 observed that the spider had ensnared a young mouse by passing 

 filaments of her web around its tail. When first seen the mouse 

 had its fore feet on the floor and could barely touch the floor 

 with its hind feet. The spider was full of business, running up 

 and down the line and occasionally biting the mouse's tail, mak- 

 ing it struggle desperately. 



Its efforts to escape were all unavailing, as the slender fila- 

 ments about its tail were too strong for it to break. In a short 

 time it was seen that the spider was slowly hoisting its victim 

 into the air. By two o'clock in the afternoon the mouse could 

 barely touch the floor with its fore feet; by dark the point of 

 its nose was an inch above the floor. At nine o'clock at night 

 the mouse was still alive, but made no 'sign except when the 

 spider descended and bit its tail. At this time it was an inch and 

 a half from the floor. 



Yesterday morning the mouse was dead, and hung three 

 inches from the floor. The news of the novel sight soon became 

 circulated, and hundreds of people visited the stable to witness 



34 Pliny, Natural History, Chap. X, p. 95, quoted in H. C. McCook, Ameri- 

 can Spiders and Their Spinningivork, Vol. I (1889), pp. 241-2. 



