122 On North American Spiders. 
semble regularly and receive their dinner of irisects.*—In some coun- 
tries they are eaten and esteemed a delicacy; their web has been 
manufactured into silk hose, and its use in stopping the bleeding of 
slight wounds is well known. 
* * & * * * * 
The popular impression that the bite of the Tarantula can be cured 
only by music, as observed by Prof. Hentz, is justly exploded, but 
the following account of the application of the supposed remedy at 
a time when it was believed to be effectual is, perhaps, worthy to 
be cited. zs 
“This animal very much resembles house spiders, but the bite of 
it, especially in hot countries, produces very fatal and astonishing ef 
fects. ‘The poison is not immediately perceptible, because its quan- 
tity is too inconsiderable ; but then it ferments, and occasions very 
frightful disorders five or six months afterwards. ‘The person who 
has been bitten, does nothing but laugh and dance, is all agitation, 
and assumes a gaiety full of extravagance, or else is seized with a 
black and dismal melancholy. At the return of that period of the 
summer season when the bite was given, the madness is renewed, 
and the distempered party constantly talks over the same inconsistel- 
cies, fancies himself a king, a shepherd, or whatever you please, and 
has no regular train of reasoning. ‘These unhappy symptoms @é 
sometimes repeated many years successively, and at last end in death. 
Those who have been in Italy, about Naples, tell us, this odd mala- 
dy is cured by a remedy which is still odder ; for, according to them, 
nothing but music, and especially an agreeable and sprightly instru 
ment, as a Violin, for instance, can give relief; for which reason they 
are never without such in this country. The musician endeavors to 
find out a tone that may seem to bear some proportion to the temper 
ament and disposition of the patient: he repeats his attempt, and 
he touches a note which makes an impression on the distemp red 
person the cure is infallible: the patient immediately begins to dance, 
and always rises and falls according to the modulation of the air. 
this manner he continues till he has heated himself into a sweat, which 
drains off the venom that torments him, and at last gives him effec 
tual relief.” 
tue 
inne 
* £ * ' ” . . 
Family library, quoting the French Dictionary of Natural History- : 
1 Spectacle de ja Nature, Eng. Trans. 3d edit. 1736, which cites for it authorily 
the Memoires de l’Academ. des Sciences, 1708. 
