The Life of the Spider | Page 4

energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfort by diminishing
the cause of the ailment. So far from laughing, I reflect and enquire,
when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud
reaper of his Theridion lugubre, the Corsican husbandman 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 myself especially
in matters of instinct; but, as the poison-fangs play a leading part in the
huntress' manoeuvres of war, I shall speak of their effects by the way.
The habits of the Tarantula, her ambushes, her artifices, her methods of
killing her prey: these constitute my subject. I will preface it with an
account by Leon Dufour, {2} one of those accounts in which I used to
delight and which did much to bring me into closer touch with the
insect. The Wizard of the Landes tells us of the ordinary Tarantula, that
of the Calabrias, observed by him in Spain:
'Lycosa tarantula by preference inhabits open places, dry, arid,

uncultivated places, exposed to the sun. She lives generally--at least
when full-grown--in underground passages, regular burrows, which she
digs for herself. These burrows are cylindrical; they are often an inch in
diameter and run into the ground to a depth of more than a foot; but
they are not perpendicular. The inhabitant of this gut proves that she is
at the same time a skilful hunter and an able engineer. It was a question
for her not only of constructing a deep retreat that could hide her from
the pursuit of her foes: she also had to set up her observatory whence to
watch for her prey and dart out upon it. The Tarantula provides for
every contingency: the underground passage, in fact, begins by being
vertical, but, at four or five inches from the surface, it bends at an
obtuse angle, forms a horizontal turning and then becomes
perpendicular once more. It is at the elbow of this tunnel that the
Tarantula posts herself as a vigilant sentry and does not for a moment
lose sight of the door of her dwelling; it was there that, at the period
when I was hunting her, I used to see those eyes gleaming like
diamonds, bright as a cat's eyes in the dark.
'The outer orifice of the Tarantula's burrow is usually surmounted by a
shaft constructed throughout by herself. It is a genuine work of
architecture, standing as much as an inch above the ground and
sometimes two inches in diameter, so that it is wider than the burrow
itself. This last circumstance, which seems to have been calculated by
the industrious Spider, lends itself admirably to the necessary extension
of the legs at the moment when the prey is to be seized. The shaft is
composed mainly of bits of dry wood joined by a little clay and so
artistically laid, one above the other, that they form the scaffolding of a
straight column, the inside of which is a hollow cylinder. The solidity
of this tubular building, of this outwork, is ensured above all by the fact
that it is lined, upholstered within, with a texture woven by the Lycosa's
{3} spinnerets and continued throughout the interior of the burrow. It is
easy to imagine how useful this cleverly-manufactured lining must be
for preventing landslip or warping, for maintaining cleanliness and for
helping her claws to scale the fortress.
'I hinted that this outwork of the burrow was not there invariably; as a
matter of fact, I have often come across Tarantulas' holes without a

trace of it, perhaps because it had been accidentally destroyed by the
weather, or because the Lycosa may not always light upon the proper
building-materials, or, lastly, because architectural talent is possibly
declared only in individuals that have reached the final stage, the period
of perfection of their physical and intellectual development.
'One thing is certain, that I have had numerous opportunities of seeing
these shafts, these out-works of the Tarantula's abode; they remind me,
on a larger scale, of the tubes of certain Caddis-worms. The Arachnid
had more than one object in view in constructing them: she shelters her
retreat from the floods; she protects it from the fall of foreign bodies
which, swept by the wind, might end by obstructing it; lastly, she uses
it as a snare by offering the Flies and other insects whereon she feeds a
projecting point to settle on. Who shall tell us all the wiles employed by
this clever and daring huntress?
'Let us now say something about my rather diverting Tarantula- hunts.
The best