EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS 
ON 
THE POISON OF ANIMALS OF THE ORDER 
ARANEIDEA. 
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Muc# has been written about the deleterious pro- 
perty of the transparent colourless fluid emitted from 
the minute orifice situated near the extremity of the 
fangs of spiders on the side next to the mouth, when 
those instruments are employed to inflict a wound. 
The numerous accounts which have been published 
by various authors of the singular effects mduced in 
the human species by the bite of the Tarentula (Zycosa 
tarentula apulie, Walck.), and of the still more extra- 
ordinary mode of cure, together with the serious and 
sometimes fatal consequences which have been attri- 
buted to the bite of the Malmignatte (Latrodectus 
malmignatus, Walck.), must be regarded as amusing 
fictions in the natural history of the Araneidea ; and 
if the opinion, prevalent among arachnologists of the 
present day, that insects pierced by the fangs of 
spiders die almost instantaneously, should be found 
