but tiny mites. They spin a delicate web, and multiply 
rapidly on plants. 
Now, let us return to our spiders. We do not like them 
one bit. Their cobwebs in our houses keep us brushing 
every day, or tell of our careless habits. The spiders go 
about so quietly that we have no warning of their mis¬ 
chievous work, and if one should suddenly fasten upon us 
we are frightened, and hate it as we hate a snake. We are 
told their bite is poisonous, and it is, in a degree ; but so far 
as spiders in Pennsylvania are concerned, it is not likely that 
any one of them has ever bitten a person, except in defense. 
Many stings and pimples found on children in the morning 
are said to have been caused by spiders in the night. This is 
seldom the case, however. Spiders never bite, if not dis¬ 
turbed, except for the purpose of obtaining food, but when cor¬ 
nered all species will show fight and bite if they can. So will 
other animals. One naturalist allowed spiders to bite his 
hand. On the ends of the fingers the skin was too thick, but 
between the fingers they easily pricked it. The bite swelled 
and smarted for a quarter of an hour and then itched for a 
day, as will a mosquito bite. There is a large black spider 
found in New Zealand, whose bite is very dangerous and 
sometimes fatal, it is said, even to men. Various insects 
have been subjected to the bites of spiders and found to die 
after a few hours, but the same kind of insects, when pricked 
with needles, have died also from the injury thus inflicted. It 
would seem, therefore, that the poison of spiders is not very 
powerful, and our fear of spider bites has but little founda¬ 
tion. The tarantula, a South European spider, has been sup¬ 
posed to cause epilepsy by its bite, which could be relieved 
only by music of particular kinds. Such stories, of course, 
are all nonsense, for it is well known today that the taran¬ 
tula bite produces no effect. In California many people 
will not raise boards or large stones from the ground with 
bare hands, for fear of tarantulas lurking underneath. Some¬ 
times large spiders come from tropical countries on bunches 
of bananas, and create much foolish excitement. 
To show that spiders are not savage, a certain naturalist 
kept one and taught it to take flies from his finger with¬ 
out biting him. Emerton, in his interesting book on 
spiders, tells that many species may be taught to take food 
