es him
into her lair.

Thanks to this method and these hunting-appliances--an ambush at the
bottom of a silken whirlpool, radiating snares, a life-line which holds
her from behind and allows her to take a sudden rush without risking
a fall--the Segestria is able to catch game less inoffensive than the
Drone-fly. A Common Wasp, they tell me, does not daunt her. Though I
have not tested this, I readily believe it, for I well know the Spider's
boldness.

This boldness is reinforced by the activity of the venom. It is enough
to have seen the Segestria capture some large Fly to be convinced of the
overwhelming effect of her fangs upon the insects bitten in the
neck. The death of the Drone-fly, entangled in the silken funnel,
is reproduced by the sudden death of the Bumble-bee on entering the
Tarantula's burrow. We know the effect of the poison on man, thanks
to Antoine Duges' investigations. (Antoine Louis Duges (1797-1838), a
French physician and physiologist, author of a "Traite de
physiologie comparee de l'homme et des animaux" and other scientific
works.--Translator's Note.) Let us listen to the brave experimenter:

"The treacherous Segestria, or Great Cellar Spider, reputed poisonous
in our part of the country, was chosen for the principal subject of our
experiments. She was three-quarters of an inch long, measured from the
mandibles to the spinnerets. Taking her in my fingers from behind, by
the legs, which were folded and gathered together (this is the way to
catch hold of live Spiders, if you would avoid their bite and master
them without mutilating them), I placed her on various objects and on
my clothes, without her manifesting the least desire to do any harm; but
hardly was she laid on the bare skin of my fore-arm when she seized a
fold of the epidermis in her powerful mandibles, which are of a metallic
green, and drove her fangs deep into it. For a few moments she remained
hanging, although left free; then she released herself, fell and fled,
leaving two tiny wounds, a sixth of an inch apart, red, but hardly
bleeding, with a slight extravasation round the edge and resembling the
wounds produced by a large pin.

"At the moment of the bite, the sensation was sharp enough to deserve
the name of pain; and this continued for five or six minutes more, but
not so forcibly. I might compare it with the sensation produced by the
stinging-nettle. A whitish tumefaction almost immediately surrounded the
two pricks; and t