When June and July come, they are anxious to be off, but they cannot make a hole in the tough fabric of the nest. Never mind, the nest will open of itself, like a ripe seed-pod. Some day, when the sun is very hot, the satin bursts. Some of the Spiderlings, all mixed up with their flossy mattress, shoot out of the balloon. They are in frantic commotion. Others stay inside the nest and come out in their own good time. But as they come out, all of them climb up the near-by twigs and send out little threads which float, break, and fly away, carrying the tiny Spiders with them. You shall hear more about these flying machines of the young Spiders in the next chapters.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TARANTULA
The Spider has a bad name: most of us think her a horrid animal, and hasten to crush her under our feet. Nevertheless, any one who observes her knows that she is a hard worker, a talented weaver, a wily huntress, and very interesting in other ways. Yes, the Spider is well worth studying, apart from any scientific reasons; but she is said to be poisonous, and that is her crime and the main reason why we hate her. She is poisonous, in a way, if by that we understand that the animal is armed with two fangs which cause the immediate death of the little victims that she catches; but there is a great difference between killing a Midge and harming a Man. However quickly the Spider’s poison kills insects, it is not as a rule serious for us and causes less trouble than a gnat-bite. That, at least, is what we can safely say about the great majority of Spiders.
Nevertheless, a few are to be feared. The Italians say that the Tarantula produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her. Music is the only cure for this, and they tell us some tunes are better than others. The tarantella, a lively dance, probably owes its name to this idea of the Italian peasants. The story makes us feel like laughing, but, after all, the bite of the Tarantula may possibly bring on some nervous trouble which music will relieve; and possibly a very energetic dance makes the patient break out into a perspiration and so get rid of the poison.
The most powerful Spider in my neighborhood, the Black-bellied Tarantula, will presently show us what her poison can do. But first I will introduce her to you in her home, and tell you about her hunting.
This Tarantula is dressed in black velvet on the lower surface, with brown stripes on the abdomen and gray and white rings around the legs. Her favorite dwelling-place is the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme. In my plot of waste ground, there are quite twenty of these Spiders’ burrows. I hardly ever pass by one of these haunts without giving a glance down the pit where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four telescopes of the hermit. The four other eyes, which are much smaller, are not visible at that depth.
The Tarantula’s dwellings are pits about a foot deep, dug by herself with her fangs, going straight down at first and then bent elbow-wise. They are about an inch wide. On the edge of the hole stands a curb, formed of straw, bits and scraps of all sorts, and even small pebbles, the size of a hazel-nut. The whole is kept in place and cemented with the Spider’s silk. Sometimes this curb, or little tower, is an inch high; sometimes it is a mere rim.
I wished to catch some of these Spiders, so I waved a spikelet of grass at the entrance of the burrow to imitate the humming of a Bee. I expected that the Tarantula would rush out, thinking she heard a prey. My scheme did not succeed. The Tarantula, indeed, came a little way up her tube to find out the meaning of the sounds at her door; but she soon scented a trap; she remained motionless at mid-height and would not come any farther.