362 



ARACHNIDA ARANEAE 



found to be due to the fact that the spider invariably struck the 

 insect in a particular spot, at the junction of the head with the 

 thorax. Bees must often wander into Tarantula's holes, and a 

 prolonged contest, though it might end in the death of the 

 insect, would be certain also to result fatally for the spider. It 

 has, therefore, acquired the habit of striking its foe in the one 

 spot which causes instant death. When Fabre presented a bee 

 to a Tarantula in such a manner that it was bitten in some other 

 region, the insect survived several hours. 



A young sparrow, just ready to leave the nest, was bitten in 

 the leg. The wound became inflamed, and the limb appeared to 

 be paralysed, but the victim did not at first suffer in general 

 health, and fed heartily; death resulted, however, on the third 

 day. A mole died in thirty-six hours after the bite. 



Prom these experiments, Fabre came to the conclusion that 

 the venom of the Tarantula was at all events too powerful to be 

 entirely negligible by man. 



Trifling causes may have a fatal effect upon a man in ill 

 health, and it is quite possible that death has sometimes resulted 

 frnni the Tarantula's bite. Its effect upon a healthy subject, 

 however, is certainly not serious. Goldsmith, 

 in his Animated Nature, entirely discredits the 

 current stories about this animal, saying that 

 the Italian peasants impose upon credulous 

 travellers by allowing themselves, for money, 

 to be bitten by the Tarantula, and then feigning 

 all the symptoms which are traditionally sup- 

 posed to ensue. 



There is a genus of the Theridiidae, by name 

 Latrodectus, whose poisonous reputation almost 

 rivals that of the Tarantula. It is remarkable, 

 moreover, that it is regarded as particularly 

 dangerous in such widely-separated portions of 

 the world as Madagascar, New Zealand, Algeria, 

 the West Indies, and North America. These 

 spiders, strangely enough, are by no means 

 particularly large or formidable in appearance. 

 There are two species in Madagascar, known to the natives 

 by the names of Mena-vodi and Vancoho. Vinson ^ describes the 



' Araniides de la Reunion, Maurice et Madagascar, Paris, 1863, p. xlvi. 



Fig. 197. — Latrodectus 

 inactans, S , natural 

 size. 



