Several attempts have been made to weave the silk of Spiders as a substitute for that of the silk-worm. Web silk is, of course, far too fine to furnish a durable material, but the cocoons are usually formed of coarser silk, and it is with them that the experiment has been tried. About the beginning of the eighteenth century certain stockings and mittens made of Spider silk from the cocoons of Epeira diademata, by M. Bon of Languedoc, attracted so much attention that the Academy desired M. Réaumur to investigate the matter. His report was unfavourable to the commercial utility of Spider silk. The cocoon threads, though eighteen times stronger than those of the web, were but one-fifth of the strength of those obtained from the silk-worm, and the lustre was inferior. A still more fatal objection, however, was founded upon the cannibalistic habits of the spider, and the difficulty of furnishing it with acceptable food.
M. Vinson has recorded that some of the spiders of Madagascar, especially Epeira madagascarensis, are far better adapted than any of our English species to a commercial use. They furnish silk of a beautiful clear yellow colour; they are accustomed to live harmoniously together in families; and the range of climate in which they can thrive is very considerable. The Creole ladies of this island, under the administration of General Decaen, wove a magnificent pair of gloves from spider silk, with their own hands, for presentation to the French Empress.
Poison of Spiders.—All spiders possess poison-glands, which have their openings on the fangs of the chelicerae. The action of the chelicera in striking does not express the venom, but the poison-bag itself is covered with a muscular coat by which the contained fluid is expelled. It is highly probable, therefore, that the venom is under the control of the animal’s will, and is economised when the simple wound is sufficient for the purpose—a supposition which may partially explain the very divergent opinions held with regard to the effect of the spider’s bite. The reputation of the “Tarantula” Spider is well known, but what particular species, if any, was intended by the name is quite uncertain. The name is derived from the town Tarentum, and was certainly applied to a Lycosid spider. Probably the common south European species, Lycosa narbonensis, has as good a claim to the honour as any. The confusion has been increased by extending the name to spiders of quite a different family. Eurypelma hentzii, one of the Aviculariidae, is commonly known as the Tarantula in America.
The superstition of the tarantula dance is well known. The bite of the spider was supposed to induce a species of madness which found its expression—and its cure—in frantic and extravagant contortions of the body. If the dance was not sufficiently frenzied, death ensued. In the case of survivors, the symptoms were said to recur on the anniversary of the bite. Particular descriptions of music were supposed to incite the patient to the excessive exertion necessary for his relief; hence the “Tarantella.”
In the Middle Ages epidemics of “tarantism” were of frequent occurrence, and spread with alarming rapidity. They were seizures of an hysterical character, analogous to the ancient Bacchic dances, and quite unconnected with the venom of the spider from which they took their name. The condition of exaltation and frenzy was contagious, and would run through whole districts, with its subsequent relapse to a state of utter prostration and exhaustion. The evil reputation of the Tarantula appears to have exceedingly little basis in fact.
Baglivi relates how the country people capture the Tarantula by imitating the buzzing of an insect at the mouth of its hole. “Quo audito, ferox exit Tarentula ut muscas, quorum murmur esse putat, captet; captatur tamen a rustico insidiatore.”
Fabre[[281]] acted the part of the “insidious rustic” with slight success; but by other stratagems he enticed the creatures from their holes, and made some interesting observations upon the effects of their bite. He found that bees and wasps were instantaneously killed by them. This immediately fatal effect he found to be due to the fact that the spider invariably struck the insect in a particular spot, at the junction of the head with the thorax. Bees must often wander into Tarantula’s holes, and a prolonged contest, though it might end in the death of the insect, would be certain also to result fatally for the spider. It has, therefore, acquired the habit of striking its foe in the one spot which causes instant death. When Fabre presented a bee to a Tarantula in such a manner that it was bitten in some other region, the insect survived several hours.
A young sparrow, just ready to leave the nest, was bitten in the leg. The wound became inflamed, and the limb appeared to be paralysed, but the victim did not at first suffer in general health, and fed heartily; death resulted, however, on the third day. A mole died in thirty-six hours after the bite.
From these experiments, Fabre came to the conclusion that the venom of the Tarantula was at all events too powerful to be entirely negligible by man.
