The Life of the Spider | Page 5

season for them is the months of May and June. The first time
that I lighted on this Spider's burrows and discovered that they were
inhabited by seeing her come to a point on the first floor of her
dwelling--the elbow which I have mentioned--I thought that I must
attack her by main force and pursue her relentlessly in order to capture
her; I spent whole hours in opening up the trench with a knife a foot
long by two inches wide, without meeting the Tarantula. I renewed the
operation in other burrows, always with the same want of success; I
really wanted a pickaxe to achieve my object, but I was too far from
any kind of house. I was obliged to change my plan of attack and I
resorted to craft. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.
'It occurred to me to take a stalk, topped with its spikelet, by way of a
bait, and to rub and move it gently at the orifice of the burrow. I soon
saw that the Lycosa's attention and desires were roused. Attracted by
the bait, she came with measured steps towards the spikelet. I withdrew
it in good time a little outside the hole, so as not to leave the animal
time for reflexion; and the Spider suddenly, with a rush, darted out of
her dwelling, of which I hastened to close the entrance. The Tarantula,
bewildered by her unaccustomed liberty, was very awkward in evading

my attempts at capture; and I compelled her to enter a paper bag, which
I closed without delay.
'Sometimes, suspecting the trap, or perhaps less pressed by hunger, she
would remain coy and motionless, at a slight distance from the
threshold, which she did not think it opportune to cross. Her patience
outlasted mine. In that case, I employed the following tactics: after
making sure of the Lycosa's position and the direction of the tunnel, I
drove a knife into it on the slant, so as to take the animal in the rear and
cut off its retreat by stopping up the burrow. I seldom failed in my
attempt, especially in soil that was not stony. In these critical
circumstances, either the Tarantula took fright and deserted her lair for
the open, or else she stubbornly remained with her back to the blade. I
would then give a sudden jerk to the knife, which flung both the earth
and the Lycosa to a distance, enabling me to capture her. By employing
this hunting-method, I sometimes caught as many as fifteen Tarantulae
within the space of an hour.
'In a few cases, in which the Tarantula was under no misapprehension
as to the trap which I was setting for her, I was not a little surprised,
when I pushed the stalk far enough down to twist it round her
hiding-place, to see her play with the spikelet more or less
contemptuously and push it away with her legs, without troubling to
retreat to the back of her lair.
'The Apulian peasants, according to Baglivi's {4} account, also hunt the
Tarantula by imitating the humming of an insect with an oat-stalk at the
entrance to her burrow. I quote the passage:
'"Ruricolae nostri quando eas captare volunt, ad illorum latibula
accedunt, tenuisque avenacae fistulae sonum, apum murmuri non
absimilem, modulantur. Quo audito, ferox exit Tarentula ut muscas vel
alia hujus modi insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, captat; captatur
tamen ista a rustico insidiatore." {5}
"The Tarantula, so dreadful at first sight, especially when we are filled
with the idea that her bite is dangerous, so fierce in appearance, is
nevertheless quite easy to tame, as I have often found by experiment.

'On the 7th of May 1812, while at Valencia, in Spain, I caught a
fair-sized male Tarantula, without hurting him, and imprisoned him in a
glass jar, with a paper cover in which I cut a trap-door. At the bottom of
the jar I put a paper bag, to serve as his habitual residence. I placed the
jar on a table in my bedroom, so as to have him under frequent
observation. He soon grew accustomed to captivity and ended by
becoming so familiar that he would come and take from my fingers the
live Fly which I gave him. After killing his victim with the fangs of his
mandibles, he was not satisfied, like most Spiders, to suck her head: he
chewed her whole body, shoving it piecemeal into his mouth with his
palpi, after which he threw up the masticated teguments and swept
them away from his lodging.
'Having finished his meal, he nearly always made his toilet, which
consisted in brushing his palpi and mandibles, both inside and out, with
his front tarsi. After that, he resumed his air of motionless gravity. The