The Life of the Spider 



de surprised, when I pushed the stalk far 

 enough down to twist it round her hiding- 

 place, to see her pla}- with the spikelet more 

 or less contemptuously and push it away with 

 her legs, v.ithout troubling to retreat to the 

 back of her lair. 



'The Apulian peasants, according to 

 Baglivi's'^ account, also hunt the Tarantula 

 by imitating the humming of an insect with 

 an oat-stalk at the entrance to her burrow. 

 I quote the passage : 



' ^'Ruricola nostri quando eas captare vo- 

 lunt, ad illorum latibula accedunt, tenuisque 

 wcenacea fstulie sonum, apum murmuri non 

 ahsimilem, modulantur. Quo audita, ferox 

 exit Tarentula ut muscas vel alia hujus modi 

 insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, capiat; 

 captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore." ' 



'The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, 

 especially when we are filled with the idea 



^Giorgio Baglivi (1669-1707;, professor of anatomy 

 and medicine at Rome. — Translator's l^ote. 



""When our husbandrr.eri wish to catch them, they ap- 

 proach their hidine-places. and play on a thin erass pii>e. 

 making a sound n jt unlike the h'jmming of bees. Hear- 

 ing which, the Tarantula rushes out iierce'.y that she 

 may catch the flies or other insects of this kind, whose 

 buzzing she thinks it to be; but she herself is caught by 

 her rustic trapper." 



48 



