282 AMERICAN SPIDERS AND THEIR SPINNINGWORK. 
travelers in Italy, for a small sum, may see the ‘tarantula dance” executed 
in the very best style, either with or without the original accessory of a spi- 
der’s bite. The superstition is doubtless a very ancient one, prob- 
eee Hn ably handed down from early Roman times. <A species of Lycosa, 
Dance, Which takes its name from Tarentum, near which it was sup- 
posed especially to abound, is the spider to which tradition as- 
scribes the peculiar effects to be described. The modern scientific name 
is Lyecosa tarentula. When one is bitten by this spider, so the story goes, 
at first the pain is scarcely felt; but a few hours after come on a violent 
sickness, difficulty of breathing, fainting, and sometimes trembling. ‘Then he 
is seized with a sort of insanity. He weeps, he dances, he trembles, laughs, 
cries, skips about, breaks forth into grotesque and unnatural gestures, as- 
sumes the most extravagant postures, and, if he be not duly assisted and 
relieved, after a few days of torment, will sometimes expire. If he sur- 
vive, at the return of the season in which he was bitten, his madness 
returns. ; 
Some relief is found by divers antidotes, but the great specific is 
music. At the sound of music the victim begins the peculiar movements 
which are known as the “tarantula dance,” and continues them while the 
music continues, or until he breaks into a profuse perspiration which 
forces out the venom. ‘Thereupon he sinks into a natural sleep from 
which he awakes weakened, but recovered. Such in substance is the story 
generally told, believed, and until comparatively modern times unquestioned, 
which has found its way into the works of many travelers and natural- 
ists of the earlier sort. It may be worth while to print an example of 
these stories. Here is what one old writer has to say :— 
“ Alexander Alexandrinus proceedeth farther, affirming that he beheld 
one wounded by this Spider, to dance and leape about incessantly, and the 
Musitians (finding themselves wearied) gave over playing: where- 
upon, the poore offended dancer, hauing vtterly lost all his forces, 
fell downe on the ground, as if he had bene dead. The Musi- 
tians no sooner began to playe againe, but hee returned to himselfe, and 
mounting vp vpon his feet, danced againe as lustily as formerly hee had 
done, and so continued dancing still, til hee found the harme asswaged, 
and himselfe entirely recovered. Heerunto he addeth, that when it hath 
happened, that a man hath not beene thorowly cured by Musique in this 
manner; within some short while after, hearing the sound of Instru- 
ments, hee hath recouered footing againe, and bene enforced to hold on 
daneing, and never to ceasse, till his perfect and absolute healing, which 
(questionlesse) is admirable in nature.”? 
An An- 
cient Tale. 
Goldsmith, who seems to have been well informed on this point, does 
1 Quoted from “Treasurie of Ancient and Modern Times,” page 393, in Mr, Frank Cowan’s 
“Curious Facts in the History of Insects.” 
