A Day in New Mexico. 149 



these assertions, although I did not experiment 

 upon myself as to the effects of their biting. 

 That they can produce a very irritating sore, and 

 the venom, when taken up by the circulation, pro- 

 duces constitutional effects, is unquestionably true, 

 but I do not believe that death ever results di- 

 rectly from their bites. Not fearing the creatures, 

 I watched one in particular, to see what evidences 

 of intelligence it would exhibit. These were not 

 very apparent. It simply realized that it was a 

 prisoner, and made desperate efforts to escape. 

 When teased with a bit of straw or leaf, it made 

 no attempt to bite, but appeared to recognize my 

 finger, although protected by a glove, and gave 

 me several vicious nips, but could not penetrate 

 an ordinary kid glove. I noticed that there was 

 left upon my finger a minute drop of yellow, 

 sticky fluid, after the first and second attempts to 

 bite, but not afterwards, these two efforts seem- 

 ingly exhausting the contents of the poison-sacs. 



No person that I questioned attributed a voice 



to the tarantula, and I failed to demonstrate that 



they could make a faint whizzing or whirring 



sound, but I fancied such was the case. On the 



13* 



