122 On North American Spiders. 



semble regularly and receive their dinner of insects.*— 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. f 



" 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 inconsisten- 

 cies, fancies himself a king, a shepherd, or whatever you please, and 

 has no regular train of reasoning. These unhappy symptoms are 

 sometimes repeated many years successively, and at last end in death. 

 Those who have been in Italy, about JVaples, 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 repeals his attempt, and if 

 he touches a note which makes an impression on the distempered 

 person the cure is infallible : the patient immediately begins to dance, 

 and always rises and falls according to the modulation of the air. In 

 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." 



* Family library, quoting the French Dictionaiy of Natural History. 

 t Spectacle de la Nature, Eng. Trans. 3d edit. 17S6, which cites for it authority 

 the Meraoires de I'Academ. des Sciencefs, 1708. 



