Tarantulas. 147 



Brookes's "Natural History" gives in detail the 

 symptoms which were supposed to result from the 

 bite of one of these spiders: ' f ln the summer- 

 months, particularly in the dog-days, the tarantula 

 creeping among the corn in the fields bites the 

 mowers and passengers. . . . The part which 

 is bitten is soon after discoloured with a livid black 

 or yellowish circle, attended with an inflammation. 

 At first the pain is scarcely felt ; but a few hours 

 after there comes on a violent sickness, difficulty of 

 breathing, fainting, and sometimes trembling. The 

 person who is bit after this does nothing but laugh, 

 dance, and skip about, putting himself into the 

 most extravagant postures; but this is not always 

 the case, for he is sometimes seized with a 

 dreadful melancholy. At the return of the 

 season in which he was bit his madness begins 

 again, and the patient always talks of the same 

 thing ; sometimes he fancies himself a shepherd, a 

 king, or any other character that comes into his 

 head, and he always talks in a very extravagant 

 manner. These troublesome symptoms return for 

 several years successively, and at length terminate 

 in death . . . this odd distemper is cured by 

 a remedy altogether as odd, which is musick; for 

 this only will give them ease, and they make use of 

 the violin in particular." The effect of the music 

 was to make the patient dance sometimes for three 

 or four hours, until he was " all over in a sweat, 

 which forced out the venom which did the mis- 

 chief." Dr. Hill, however, whose book was pub- 

 L 2 



