966 DIVISION III. ARTICULATED ANIMALS.—CLASS III. ARACHNIDA. 
of the sacs of eggs and young when hatched, of a softer texture. The 
inside of its habitation is always singularly clean. The bags in which the 
eges are placed are four, five, or six in number in each habitation ; they are 
about one third of an inch in diameter, and of a lenticular form. It is not 
until the end of December or January that the eggs are deposited, and they 
are enveloped in fine down to guard them from the cold. The edges of the 
festoons not being fastened together, the insect is able to creep in and out at 
will by lifting them up. When the young are able to dispense with the 
maternal cares, they quit their common habitation, and form separate abodes, 
and their parent dies in her tent, which is thus the birthplace and tomb of 
the Uroctea.” 
The effects of changes of temperature and weather on the proceedings of 
these creatures, and the appearance of their webs, very early attracted the 
attention of mankind, and gave rise to the art of Araneology —a method of 
deciding on the changes of the weather from the motions and works of spiders. 
Intimations of it appear even in Pliny (H. N., book xi., sect. 28). It is 
also treated of in the “ Lwigwahrenden Practica” (Things of Everlasting 
Value), which appeared at Gorlitz in 1588. In later times Quatremére 
Disjonval, member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, during an eight 
months’ imprisonment, in which some spiders were his only companions, 
made various observations on the subject; and in 1797, at Paris, made 
known his discovery of the close connection existing between the appear- 
ance or disappearance, the labor or rest, the greater or less circumference 
of the webs and fibres, of spiders of different sorts, and the atmospherical 
changes from fair weather to rain, from dry to wet, and particularly from hot 
to cold, and from frost to a milder temperature. In the genus 
Lycosa is the celebrated Tarentula, so named from the city of Tarentum, 
in Italy, in the environs of which it is common. These spiders live on the 
ground, and run with great swiftness. They dwell in holes, lining the in- 
side with silk, and increasing the size as they grow. Some inhabit the holes 
of walls, where they make silken tubes, the outside of which they cover with 
earth or sand, and in which they moult and hibernate. It is the opinion of 
the vulgar that the venom of the Tarentula occasions dangerous wounds, 
often fatal, or followed by a singular kind of delirium called tarentism, 
which can only be cured by music and dancing. All spiders are, in a degree, 
poisonous, we believe, but not to the extent ascribed to the Tarentula, and 
the medical art supplies effective remedies. 
Mycate. —In this genus are some of the largest species of the family. 
They have eight eyes, and form their nests in the slits of trees, beneath the 
bark, in the cavities of stones, or on the surface of leaves of various vege- 
tables. They feed on crickets, cockroaches, and, according to M. Moreau 
