INSECTS AND SPIDEKS 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT 



(Photo^aphs from life by the author). 



T T is the usual impression among those who have paid Now, many years ago, a certain class of Italians greatly 



but scant attention to anything bordering on Nature feared the bite of one of these venomous spiders, and, 



Study in general, that the spiders and insects of the swayed by the superstitions of the time, they inaugurated 



world all belong in the same assemblage, and that they a dance at the city of Taranto, in southern Italy, to which 



may be referred to, as a 

 whole, as insects such as 

 beetles, bees, and butter- 

 flies. This is quite wide of 

 the mark, and it is the ob- 

 ject of the present article 

 to throw a little light on 

 the question. 



Spiders, for instance, 

 have eight legs ; all the in- 

 sects so-called, have six. 

 Spiders have no antennae 

 and no wings. Spiders 

 have one pair of jaws, the 

 insects have two. 



The centipedes, "thou- 

 sand legs" and their near 

 allies, are insects and not 

 spiders. 



We have some very re- 

 markable spiders in the 

 United States and many of 

 them are very well known. 

 For instance, the com- 

 mon yellow and black "gar- 

 den spider" is familiar to 

 nearly every one, and four 

 examples of them are here 

 shown in Figure 2, they be- 

 ing the larger ones in the 

 cut. In summer, many of 

 these are found in old fields 

 where goldenrod and dog- 

 bane grow, and where the 

 grass and other vegetation 

 is coarse and rank. They 

 construct a beautiful "orb- 

 web" a structure that may 

 frequently be seen in city 

 and country gardens, how 

 ever small the first-named 

 may be. 



Our biggest spider is the 

 Texas Tarantula ; and un- 

 less one has especially 

 looked the matter up, few there are that could guess how 

 the spiders called tarantulas ever had had such a name 

 bestowed upon them ; least of all would it be suspected 

 that the name was derived from a dance. 



FIG. 1 



This insect is of a beautiful chocolate brown color, being 

 more lightly tinted at the joints. It can curl itself up in a 

 circular manner like its little relative of the north. 



they gave the name of 

 "tarantella." Only a single 

 couple performed it, one or 

 both of whom had been 

 bitten by a tarantula. So 

 maniacal was this dance in 

 its whirling and giddy fig- 

 ures that it was regarded 

 as a mania to which the 

 name of "tarantism" was 

 given. After a while it 

 came to pass that one had 

 but to suspect that he or 

 she had been bitten by a 

 tarantula in order to at 

 once find a partner, and 

 then and there commence 

 to dance the tarantella or 

 tarantelle, as it was also 

 called. This was along in 

 the sixteenth century, at a 

 time when many believed 

 that the tarantella was an 

 absolutely certain cure for 

 tarantula bite. As time 

 passed, the nature of the 

 dance underwent a very 

 considerable change, as it 

 began to be accompanied 

 by music of a peculiar, 

 rapid rhythm, and six cou- 

 ples took part in the dance, 

 which had lost none of its 

 insane, whirling character. 

 The name tarantula is 

 also applied to a certain 

 fish and to a lizard, while 

 in southern Europe it only 

 suggests the big wolf 

 spider. 



There are many species 

 of tarantulas described, and 

 a large number of them oc- 

 cur in the Americas. The 

 one here figured is from 

 Texas, and the writer had it alive for some time. Not 

 only is it one of the largest spiders known, but a most 

 dangerous and vicious creature. It was not an easy 

 subject to photograph, as it had a way of jumping some 



A PAIR OF LARGE MILLIPEDS FROM 

 FLORIDA 



