348 



25 per cent of its whole weight. This substance is a peculiar unstable alkaloid, de- 

 stroyed at 60° C, or by alcohol. Introduced into the circulation of warm-blooded 

 animals, one-thirtieth of a milligram per kilogram of the animal treated was sufiScient 

 to cause death. It exceeds in power all known vegetable principles and prussic acidr 

 being comparable in toxicity with the poison of snakes. 



The following two letters also bearing on the subject are appended, 

 the first of which is from Mr. E. Allan Wight, of jS'ew Zealand : 



What Dr. Wright told you about the Katipo is perfectly correct. I was then liv- 

 ing close by and knew all the parties and all the circumstances, and my sons also re- 

 member it all. It was as clear a case of Katipo poisoning as possible, and the man 

 Said he saw the spider bite hira and minutely described the spidsr, which description 

 tallied exactly with its proper one. A case occurred at Whangarei a few weeks ago, 

 where a man was bitten and suffered a good deal, and I have written to the medical 

 man who attended him and will ]et you know the result. I am also going soon on 

 another long tour in the north, where I shall be able to get many tales and reliable 

 information from both natives and white men as to the Katipo, and will let you know 

 when I come back. I drove over to a man who is said to have lost his arm " through a 

 Katijjo,^' but I found that he does not know one when he sees it, did not see the bite in- 

 flicted, was in a place where the Katipo does not live, and when the arm was re- 

 moved the bone was diseased (''honeycombed"). That is one of those tales people hear 

 and which make it difficult to believe anj^thing. I feel certain the Katipo is a very 

 dangerously poisonous spider, but I never but once saw a case with my own eyes. It 

 was many years ago and I was out with a war partj' of Maoris ; one night we found 

 ourselves in an unpleasant position as far as they were concerned. On our rear there 

 were a number of nice hollow places to sleep in, but as these were Maori ovens, in 

 which men had been cooked for a cannibal feast, the natives not only would not sleep 

 in them but they would not let me; so we lay down on the bare shingle beach with no 

 tent in a high wind, and before us at a short distance was an island that is (they say) 

 inhabited by evil spirits ; so with spirits both before and behind we lay awake talk- 

 ing in subdued whispers. 



I had my head on a rush bush, but they would have me shift it on to a rock, be- 

 cause they said the Katipo lived in the rushes by the sea-side. I was anxious for 

 them to sleep, knowing that to-morrow we would want all our strength, but it was 

 no use, for by and by a man screamed out that the Katipo had bitten him, and in a 

 moment lights were brought, and sure enough the Katipo was there within a foot of 

 the wound under his mat. The arm swelled, but not so much as to give alarm. What 

 alarmed me more were his weakness and languor and the lowness of his pulse and 

 his heart action. The poison certainly was a powerful narcotic, if symptoms go for 

 anything. I gave him all the brandy we had, and the natives pretty well burned his 

 wound and rubbed and rubbed at him till they got him into a perspiration, but he 

 did not properly recover for several days, and if one had only known it would have 

 been a mercy to have let him die (which I believe he would) ; so I thought when I 

 saw him gasping his life away with blood and froth flowing from his mouth. Ugh! 

 That is one of the several scenes I do not care to think about. By the by, I could 

 not get the specimen; the Maoris burned it, as they said the Katipo is an evil sjiirit 

 and if we did not burn it the man would die. I never heard of any Katipo but one ; 

 I think Taylor is mistaken. I have many chiefs here, and I asked them only to-day, 

 butuoone ever heard of but one Katipo — the black spider with a vermilion spot on 

 the abdomen. * * * .—[R. Alia n Wight. 



Immediately after reading Dr. Corson's interesting article on Spider Bites in the 

 March number of Insect Life I went into a partially darkened room and drew on 

 my bare feet a pair of felt boots that had been unused for some time. Simultane- 

 ously I received a sharp puncture on my ankle. 



Dr. Corson's case of the man who was bitten on the toe while putting on his stock- 



