I make more experiments and find that it is only once in a while that the Tarantula will come out to fight the Carpenter-bee, but each time that she does so she kills it in the same way. The reason of the Tarantula’s hesitation is plain. An insect of this kind cannot be seized recklessly: the Tarantula who missed her strike by biting at random would do so at the risk of her life. Stung in any other place, the Bee might live for hours and manage to sting her foe with her poisoned dagger. The Spider is well aware of this. In the safe shelter of her threshold she watches for the right moment; she waits for the big Bee to face her, when the neck is easily grabbed.
THE TARANTULA’S POISON
The Tarantula’s poison is a pretty dangerous weapon, as we shall see. I make a Tarantula bite the leg of a young, well-fledged Sparrow, ready to leave the nest. A drop of blood flows; the wounded spot is surrounded by a reddish circle, changing to purple. The bird almost immediately loses the use of its leg, which drags, with the toes doubled in; it hops upon the other leg. Aside from this, the patient does not seem to trouble much about his hurt; his appetite is good. My daughters feed him on Flies, bread-crumb, apricot-pulp. He is sure to get well; he will recover his strength; the poor victim of the curiosity of science will be restored to liberty. This is the wish and intention of us all. Twelve hours later, we are still more hopeful; the invalid takes nourishment readily; he clamors for it, if we keep him waiting. Two days after, he refuses his food. Wrapping himself stoically in his rumpled feathers, the Sparrow hunches into a ball, now motionless, now twitching. My girls take him in the hollow of their hands and warm him with their breath. The spasms become more frequent. A gasp tells us that all is over. The bird is dead.
There is a certain coolness among us at the evening meal. I read silent reproaches, because of my experiment, in the eyes of the home-circle; I know they think me cruel. The death of the unfortunate Sparrow has saddened the whole family. I myself feel remorseful: what I have found out seems to me too dearly bought.
Nevertheless, I had the courage to try again with a Mole who was caught stealing from our lettuce-beds. I put him in a cage and fed him on a varied diet of insects—Beetles and Grasshoppers. He crunched them up with a fine appetite. Twenty-four hours of this life convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the bill of fare and taking kindly to his captivity.
I made the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout. When put back in his cage, the Mole kept on scratching his nose with his broad paws. The thing seemed to burn, to itch. From now on, he ate less and less of the store of insects: on the evening of the following day, he refused them altogether. About thirty-six hours after being bitten, the Mole died during the night, and certainly not from starvation, for there were still many live insects in the cage.
The bite of my Tarantula is therefore dangerous to other animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatal to the Mole. I did not make any more experiments, but I should say that people had better beware of the bite of this Spider. It is not to be trifled with.
Think, just for a moment, of the skill of the Spider, the insect-killer, as contrasted with the skill of the Wasps, the insect-paralyzers. These insect-killers, who live on their prey, strike the game dead at once by stinging the nerve-centers of the neck; the paralyzers, on the other hand, who wish to keep the food fresh for their larvæ, destroy the power of movement by stinging the game in the other nerve-centers, lower down. They do not acquire this knowledge, they have it as soon as they are born. And they teach those of us who think that there is something behind it all, that there is Some One who has planned things for insects and men alike.