The Spider has a bad name: to most of us, she represents an odious,noxious animal, which every one hastens to crush under foot. Againstthis summary verdict the observer sets the beast’s industry, itstalent as a weaver, its wiliness in the chase, its tragic nuptials andother characteristics of great interest. Yes, the Spider is wellworth studying, apart from any scientific reasons; but she is said tobe poisonous and that is her crime and the primary cause of the repugnancewherewith she inspires us. Poisonous, I agree, if by that we understandthat the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate deathof the little victims which it catches; but there is a wide differencebetween killing a Midge and harming a man. However immediate inits effects upon the insect entangled in the fatal web, the Spider’spoison is not serious for us and causes less inconvenience than a Gnat-bite.That, at least, is what we can safely say as regards the great majorityof the Spiders of our regions.
Nevertheless, a few are to be feared; and foremost among these isthe Malmignatte, the terror of the Corsican peasantry. I haveseen her settle in the furrows, lay out her web and rush boldly at insectslarger than herself; I have admired her garb of black velvet speckledwith carmine-red; above all, I have heard most disquieting stories toldabout her. Around Ajaccio and Bonifacio, her bite is reputed verydangerous, sometimes mortal. The countryman declares this fora fact and the doctor does not always dare deny it. In the neighbourhoodof Pujaud, not far from Avignon, the harvesters speak with dread ofTheridion lugubre, {1}first observed by Léon Dufour in the Catalonian mountains; accordingto them, her bite would lead to serious accidents. The Italianshave bestowed a bad reputation on the Tarantula, who produces convulsionsand frenzied dances in the person stung by her. To cope with ‘tarantism,’the name given to the disease that follows on the bite of the ItalianSpider, you must have recourse to music, the only efficacious remedy,so they tell us. Special tunes have been noted, those quickestto afford relief. There is medical choreography, medical music.And have we not the tarantella, a lively and nimble dance, bequeathedto us perhaps by the healing art of the Calabrian peasant?
Must we take these queer things seriously or laugh at them?From the little that I have seen, I hesitate to pronounce an opinion.Nothing tells us that the bite of the Tarantula may not provoke, inweak and very impressionable people, a nervous disorder which musicwill relieve; nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resultingfrom a very energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfortby diminishing the cause of the ailment. So far from laughing,I reflect and enquire, when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of hisTarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his Theridion lugubre, the Corsicanhusbandman of his Malmignatte. Those Spiders might easily deserve,at least partly, their terrible reputation.
The most powerful Spider in my district, the Black-bellied Tarantula,will presently give us something to think about, in this connection.It is not my business to discuss a medical point, I interest myselfespecially in matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs play a leadingpart in the huntress’ manoeuvres of war, I shall speak of theireffects by the way. The habits of the Tarantula, her ambushes,her artifices, her methods of killing her prey: these constitute mysubject. I will preface it with an account by Léon Dufour,{2} one of those accountsin which I used to delight and whi