33,8 
natural history 
is a native of Italy, Cyprus, Barbary, and the East In- 
dies. It lives in bare fields, where the lands are fallow, 
but notVery hard; and, from its antipathy to damp and 
shade, chooses for its residence, the rising part of the 
ground facing the east. Its dwelling is about four inches 
deep, and half an inch wide; at the bottom it is curved, 
and there the insect sits in wet weather, and cuts its way 
out if water gains upon it — It weaves a net at the mouth 
of the hole. These spiders do not live quite a year. In 
July they shed their skin, and proceed to propagation; 
which, from a mutual distrust, as they frequently devour 
one another, is a work undertaken with great circum- 
spection. They lay about 7 30 eggs, which are hatched 
in the spring; but the parent does not live to see her 
progeny, as she expires early in the winter. The ich- 
neumon fly is their most formidable enemy. The bite of 
the tarantula is said to occasion an inflammation in the 
part, which in a few hours brings on sickness, difficulty 
of breathing, and universal faintness. The person is af- 
terwards affected with a delirium, and generally seized 
with a deep melancholy. The same symptoms return 
annually, in some cases for several years, and at length 
terminate in death. Music, it has been pretended, is the 
only cure. A musician is brought, who tries a variety 
of airs, till at last he hits upon one which excites the pa- 
tient to dance; the violence of which exercise produces 
a proportionable agitation of the vital spirits, attended 
%vith a consequent degree of perspiration, the certain con- 
sequences of which is a cure. Such are the circum- 
stances which have generally been related, and long cre- 
dited, concerning the bite of this animal. But, doubts 
of the truth of these circumstances have originated in 
some very respectable authorities. There is a letter re- 
corded in the Philosophical Transactions for 1762, page 
406, from Dr. Thomas Cornelia, a Neapolitan physician, 
to John Doddington, Esq., his Britannic Majesty’s resi- 
dent at Venice, containing the following relation,— 
u Meanwhile I shall not omit to impart to you, what 
was related to me a few days since, by a judicious and 
unprejudiced person— c being in the county of Otranto, 
