the Spider; a genus of insects belonging to the order of aptera, or insects without wings. All the species of spiders have eight legs, with three joints in each, and terminating in three crooked claws; eight eyes, two before, two behind, and the rest on the sides of the head. In the fore-part of the head, at the mouth, there is a pair of sharp crooked claws or forcipae: these stand horizontally; and, when not exerted for use, are concealed in two cases contrived for their reception, in which they fold like a clap-knife, and there lie between two rows of teeth. A little below the point of each claw, there is a small hole, through which Leeuwenhoek supposes the spider emits a kind of poison (a). These claws are the weapons with which they kill flies, &c. for their food. The belly or hinder part is separated from the head and breast by a small thread-like tube. The skin or outer surface is a hard polished crust.

Spiders have five tubercles, or nipples at the extremity of the belly, whose apertures they can enlarge or contract at pleasure. It is through these apertures that they spin a gluey substance with which their bellies are full. They fix the end of their threads by applying these nipples to any substance, and the thread lengthens in proportion as the animal recedes from it. They can stop the issuing of the threads by contracting the nipples, and re-ascend by means of the claws on their feet, much in the same manner as some men warp up a rope. When the common house-spider begins her web, she generally chooses a place where there is a cavity, such as the corner of a room, that she may have a free passage on each side, to make her escape in case of danger. Then she fixes one end of her thread to the wall, and passes on to the other side, dragging the thread along with her (or rather the thread follows her as she proceeds), till she arrives at the other side, and there fixes the other end of it. Thus she passes and repasses, till she has made as many parallel threads as she thinks necessary for her purpose. After this, she begins again and crosses these by other parallel threads, which may be named the web. These are the toils or snares which she prepares for entangling flies, and other small insects, which happen to light upon it. But, besides this large web, she generally weaves a small cell for herself, where she lies concealed watching for her prey. Betwixt this cell and the large web she has a bridge of threads, which, by communicating with the threads of the large one, both give her early intelligence when anything touches the web, and enables her to pass quickly in order to lay hold of it. There are many other methods of weaving peculiar to different species of spiders; but as they are all intended

(a) Dr Mead, in his Essay on Poisons, differs wholly from this opinion, having never been able, on repeated examinations, to discover any such opening, not even in the claws of the largest foreign spider; which being above fifty times bigger than any of the European spiders, would more easily have afforded a view of this opening, if nature had allotted any to this part of the animal. Besides, repeated observations also convinced him that nothing dropped out of the claws, which went always dry while the spider bit any thing, but that a short white proboscis was at the same instant thrust out of the mouth, which instilled a liquor into the wound. And the same author observes, that the quantity of liquor emitted by our common spiders when they kill their prey, is visibly so great, and the wounding weapons so minute, that they could contain but a very inconsiderable portion thereof, if it were to be discharged that way. Baker's Microscope, p. 196. Spiders frequently cast their skins, which may be found in the webs perfectly dry and transparent; and from such skins the forcipae, or claws, for they are always shed with the skins, may easier be separated, and examined with much greater exactness, than in the common spider while living. That darting out of long threads, however, which has been observed by naturalists, and by means of which some species can convey themselves to great distances, deserves particular notice.

Dr Lister tells us, that attending closely to a spider weaving a net, he observed it suddenly to desist in the mid-work; and turning its tail to the wind, it darted out a thread with the violence and stream we see water spout out of a jet; this thread, taken up by the wind, was immediately carried to some fathoms long; still issuing out of the belly of the animal. By-and-by the spider leaped into the air, and the thread mounted her up swiftly. After this discovery, he made the like observation in near thirty different sorts of spiders; and found the air filled with young and old, falling on their threads, and doubtless seizing gnats and other insects in their passage, there being often manifest signs of slaughter, legs and wings of flies, &c. on these threads, as well as in their webs below. Dr Hulfe discovered the same thing about the same time.

Dr Lister thinks there is a fair hint of the darting of spiders in Aristotle, Hist. An. lib. ix. cap. 39. and in Pliny, lib. x. cap. 74. But with regard to their falling, the ancients are silent, and he thinks it was first seen by him. He also observes of those falling spiders, that they will often dart, not a single thread only, but "a whole sheaf at once, consisting of many filaments; yet all of one length, all divided each from the other, and distinct until some chance either snap them off or entangle them. But for the most part you may observe, that the longer they grow, the more they spread, and appear to a diligent observer like the numerous rays in the tail of a blazing star. As for that which carries them away in the air, so swift off-hand, it is (as I have already hinted) partly their sudden leap; partly the length and number of the threads projected, the stream of the air and wind beating more forcibly upon them; and partly the posture and management of their feet, which, at least by some of them, I have observed to have been used very like wings or oars, the several legs (like our fingers) being sometimes close joined, at other times opened, again bent, extended, &c. according to the several necessities and will of the sailer. To fly they cannot be strictly said, they being carried into the air by external force; but they can, in case the wind suffer them, steer their course, and perhaps mount and descend at pleasure: and to the purpose of rowing themselves along the air, it is observable that they ever take their flight backwards; that is, their head looking a contrary way, like a fuller upon the Thames. It is scarce credible to what height they will mount; which yet is precisely true, and a thing easily to be observed by one that shall fix his eye some time on any part of the heavens, the white webs, at a vast distance, very distinctly appearing from the azure sky; but this is in autumn only, and that in very fair and calm weather." In a letter to Mr Ray, dated January 1670, speaking of the height spiders are able to fly to, he says, "Last October, &c. I took notice, that the air was very full of webs; I forthwith mounted to the top of the highest steeple on the Minster (in York), and could there discern them yet exceeding high above me."

He further observes, that they not only thus shoot their threads upward, and mount with it in a line almost perpendicular; they also project them in a line parallel to the horizon, as may be seen by their threads running from one wall to another in a house, or from one tree to another in the field, and even from wall to wall across gardens of considerable extent.

The matter of which the spider's threads are formed, we have observed, is a viscid juice, elaborated in the body of the animal, and emitted from papillae situated at the extremity of the belly; which papillae are furnished with numerous apertures that do the business of wire-drawers, as it were, in forming the threads. Of these apertures Mr Reaumur observes, there are enough in the compass of the smallest pin's head to yield a prodigious quantity of distinct threads. The holes are perceived by their effects: take a large garden-spider ready to lay its eggs, and applying the finger on a part of its papillae, as you withdraw that finger it will take with it an amazing number of different threads. Mr Reaumur has often counted 70 or 80 with a microscope, but has perceived that there were infinitely more than he could tell. In effect, if he should say that each tip of a papilla furnished a thousand, he is persuaded he would say much too little. The part is divided into an infinity of little prominences, like the eyes of a butterfly, &c. Each prominence no doubt makes its several threads; or rather between the several protuberances there are holes that give vent to threads; the use of the protuberances, in all probability, being to keep the threads at their first exit, before they are yet hardened by the air, asunder. In some spiders these protuberances are not so sensible; but in lieu thereof there are tufts of hair which may serve the same office, viz. to keep the threads a-part. Be this as it will, there may threads come out at above a thousand different places in every papilla; consequently the spider, having five papillae, has holes for above five thousand threads.

Such is the tenacity of the threads in the larger sort of spiders. But if we examine the young produced by those, we shall find that they no sooner quit their egg than they begin to spin. Indeed their threads can scarcely be perceived, but the webs may: they are frequently as thick and close as those of house-spiders; and no wonder, there being often four or five hundred little spiders concurring to the same work. How minute must their holes be? the imagination can scarce conceive that of their papillae! The whole spider is perhaps less than a papilla of the parent which produced it. But there are even some kinds of spiders so small at their birth, that they are not visible without a microscope. There are usually found an infinity of these in a cluster, and they only appear like a number of red points: And yet there are webs found under them, though well nigh imperceptible. What must be the tenacity of one of these threads? Mr Leeuwenhoek has computed that 100 of the single threads of a full grown spider are not equal to the diameter of the hair of his beard; and consequently, if the threads and hairs be both round, ten thousand such threads are not bigger than such a hair. He calculates further, that when young spiders first begin to spin, four hundred of them are not larger than one which is of a full growth; allowing which, four millions of a young spider's... Garden-spiders, particularly the short-legged species, yield a kind of silk, which has by some been judged scarce inferior to that of the silk-worm. Mr Bon of Languedoc, about 70 years ago, contrived to manufacture from it a pair of silk stockings and mittens, of a beautiful natural grey colour, which were almost as handsome and strong as those made with common silk: and he published a dissertation concerning the discovery. But M. Reaumur, being appointed by the Royal Academy to make a farther inquiry into this new silk work, raised several objections and difficulties against it, which are found in the memoirs of the Academy for the year 1710. The sum of what he has urged amounts to this. The natural fierceness of the spiders renders them unfit to be bred and be kept together. Four or five thousand being distributed into cells, fifty in some, one or two hundred in others, the big ones soon killed and eat the less, so that in a short time, there were scarce left one or two in each cell; and to this inclination of mutually eating one another M. Reaumur ascribes the scarcity of spiders, considering the vast number of eggs they lay.

But this is not all: he even affirms, that the spider's bag is inferior to that of the silk-worm both in lustre and strength, and that it produces less matter to be manufactured. The thread of the spider's web, he says, only bears a weight of two grains without breaking; and that of the bag bears thirty-six. The latter, therefore, in all probability, is eighteen times thicker than the former; yet it is weaker than that of the silk-worm, which bears a weight of two drams and a half. So that five threads of the spider's bag must be put together to equal one thread of the silk-worm's bag. Now it is impossible these should be applied so justly over one another as not to leave little vacant spaces between them, whence the light will not be reflected; and, of consequence, a thread thus compounded must fall short of the lustre of a solid thread. Add to this, that the spider's thread cannot be wound off as that of the silk-worm may, but must of necessity be carded; by which means, being torn in pieces, its unevenness, which contributes much to its lustre, is destroyed. In effect, this want of lustre was taken notice of by M. de la Hire, when the stockings were presented to the Academy. Again, spiders furnish much less silk than the worms: the largest bags of these latter weigh four grains, the smaller three grains; so that 2304 worms produce a pound of silk. The spider-bags do not weigh above one grain; yet when cleared of their dust and filth, they lose two-thirds of their weight. The work of twelve spiders, therefore, only equals that of one silk-worm; and a pound of silk will require at least 27,648 spiders. But as the bags are wholly the work of the females, who spin them to deposit their eggs in, there must be kept 55,296 spiders to yield a pound of silk. Yet will this only hold of the best spiders; those large ones ordinarily seen in gardens, &c. scarce yielding a twelfth part of the silk of the others. Two hundred and eighty of these, he shows, would not yield more than one silk-worm; 603,552 of them would scarce yield a pound.

The act of generation among spiders varies in different species. As these insects prey upon each other except during the time of their amours, they dare not come within reach of one another but with the utmost caution. They may sometimes be seen stretching out their legs, shaking the web, and tampering with each other by a slight touch with the extremity of their feet; then, in a fright, dropping hastily down their thread, and returning in a few moments to make fresh trial by feeling. When once both parties are well assured of the sex they have to deal with, the approaches of their feet, in order to feel, become more frequent, confidence takes place, and the instant of amorous dalliance ensues. "We cannot," says Lyonnet, "but admire how careful they are not to give themselves up blindly to a passion, or venture on an imprudent step, which might become fatal to them." A caveat this to the human kind. Lifter and Lyonnet, two accurate observers, say, that the extremity of those arms, or claws, which the spider uses to grasp his prey with, suddenly opens, as it were by a spring, and lets out a white body, which the male applies beneath the abdomen of the female to fulfil the wish of nature. In the water-spider, the sexual organs are situated at the hinder parts of the male, are curved, and act as it were by a spring; those of the females are distinct. Nature by a thousand varied methods accomplishes her purpose.

Spiders frequently change their colour, which varies much, in respect to season, sex, age, &c. but they are in general more beautifully variegated in autumn; a season not only the most opportune and plentiful respecting their prey, but the time when they arrive at their greatest magnitude, and are in their height of vigour.

The species of aranea enumerated by naturalists amount to upwards of 50; of which it may here suffice to mention a few of the most remarkable.

1. The calycina, with a round pale yellow belly, and two hollow points. It lives in the cups of flowers, after the flower-leaves have fallen off; and catches bees, and other flies, when they are in search of honey.

2. The avicularia, has a convex round breast, hollowed tranversely in the middle. It is a native of America, and feeds upon small birds, insects, &c. The bite of this spider is as venomous as that of the ferent.

3. The ocellata, has three pair of eyes on its thighs. It is about the same size with the tarantula, of a pale colour, with a black ring round the belly, and two large black spots on the sides of the breast. It is a native of China.

4. The fuscata, has an oval belly, of a dusky iron colour. It lives in the ground, and carries a sack with its eggs where-ever it goes. This sack it glues to its belly, and will rather die than leave it behind.

5. Diadema is the largest spider which this country produces. The abdomen is of an oval form, downy, and of a ruddy yellow colour, which is very variable in different seasons; being sometimes paler, at others very dark coloured. The upper part is beautifully adorned with black and white circles and dots, having a longitudinal band in the middle, composed of oblong and oval-shaped pearl-coloured spots, so arranged as to resemble a fillet, similar to those worn by the eastern kings. The ground upon which this fillet and the white dots are laid, when viewed with a glass, and the sun shining thereon, is beautiful and rich beyond all description. There are varieties in colour of this spider. der when young: some have their abdomen purple, ornamented with white dots, the legs yellow and annulated with a deeper colour; others have their abdomens of a fine red likewife ornamented with white, but the legs of a fine pale green colour; annulated with dark purple or black. It inhabits the birch-tree.

6. The cucurbitina, has a globular yellow belly, with a few black spots. It lives in the leaves of trees, and incloes its eggs in a soft net.

7. The labyrinthica, with a dusky oval belly, a whitish indented line, and a forked anus. The web of this species is horizontal, with a cylindrical well or tube in the middle.

8. The fimbriata, has a black oblong belly, with a white line on each side, and dusky-coloured legs. It lives in water, upon the surface of which it runs with great swiftness.

9. The holofeirce, has an ovalish belly covered with a down-like velvet; at the base, or under part, it has two yellow spots. It is found in the folded leaves of plants.

10. The viatica, or wanderer, is generally of a yellow colour more or less deep. Sometimes it is whitish and even rather green. The abdomen is large, broad, almost square, with two bands of dark orange, which arising from the thorax descend obliquely on the sides towards the middle. Between the bands are a few small black dots forming a kind of triangle upon the middle of the abdomen. On the thorax are seen two longitudinal bands somewhat green, one on each side. The two foremost pair of legs are very long, and the hinder short; which makes it walk like a crab. It is found upon plants; and is a lively, active, indefatigable hunter. Without any motion of the head, which is furnished with immovable eyes, it perceives all the flies that hover round about, does not scare them, but stretches over them its arms furnished with feathers, which prove nets in which their wings intangle. It is said to sit on its eggs; which however it often carries about with it, wrapt up in a ball of white silk.

11. The aquatica, is of a livid colour, with an oval belly, and a transverse line, and two hollowed points. It frequents the fresh waters of Europe. But it is in some fort amphibious: for it can live on land as well as in the water, and comes often on shore for its food; yet it swims well in water, both on its belly and back: it is distinguishable by its brightness. In the water its belly appears covered with a silver varnish, which is only a bubble of air attached to the abdomen by means of the oily humours which transpire from its body, and prevent the immediate contact of the water. This bubble of air is made the subsistence of its dwelling, which it constructs under water: for it fixes several threads of silk, or such fine matter, to the stalks of plants in the water; and then attending to the surface, thrusts the hinder part of its body above water, drawing it back again with such rapidity, that it attaches underneath a bubble of air, which it has the art of retaining under water, by placing it underneath the threads abovementioned, and which it binds like a covering almost all around the air-bubble. Then it ascends again for another air-bubble; and thus proceeds until it has constructed a large aerial apartment under water, which it enters into or quits at pleasure. The male constructs for himself one near to the female; and when love invites, he breaks through the thread walls of the female's dwelling, and the two bubbles attached to the bellies of both unite into one, forming one large nuptial chamber. The female is sometimes laid for a whole day together stretched on her back, waiting for the arrival of the male, without motion, and seemingly as if dead. As soon as he enters and glides over her, she seems to be brought to life again, gets on her legs and runs after the male, who makes his escape with all possible speed. The female takes care of the young, and constructs similar apartments on purpose for them. The figure of this spider has nothing remarkable; and would be overlooked among a crowd of curiosities, if the spectator be unacquainted with its singular art of constructing an aerial habitation under water, and thus uniting together the properties of both elements. It lodges during the winter in empty shells, which it dexterously shuts up with a web.

12. The fauciata, with yellow bands round the belly, and dusky rings on the legs, is a native of Barbary, and is as large as the thumb. It inhabits hedges and thickets: its webs have large meshes, and it resides in the centre. The snares are spread for large flies, wasps, drones, and even locusts: the lesser insects can escape through the meshes. The animal which it entangles is soon bound with strong threads; killed by the spider's jaws; and partly eat, if the spider is hungry: the rest is concealed under some neighbouring dry leaves, covered with a kind of web and a blackish glue in great abundance. Its larder is said to be often plentifully stored: —Its nest is of the size of a pigeon's egg, divided horizontally, and suspended by the threads of the insect, which are of a silvery white, and stronger than silk. The young ones live in amity; but when grown up, are mortal enemies. They never meet but they fight with violence, and their battle only ends with the death of the weakest. The dead body is carefully stored in the larder. Twelve of these spiders, by way of experiment, were shut up together; and, after a battle of eight days, the strongest only remained alive.

13. The tarantula, has the breast and belly of an ash-colour; the legs are likewise ash-coloured, with blackish rings on the under part; the fangs or nippers are red on the inner side, the rest being blackish: Two of its eyes are larger than the other, red, and placed in the front; four other eyes are placed in a transverse direction towards the mouth; the other two are nearer the back: It has two antennae or feelers. It is a native of Italy, Cyprus, Barbary, and the East Indies. It lives in bare fields, where the lands are fallow, but not very hard; and from its antipathy to damp and shade, chooses for its residence the rising part of the ground facing the east. Its dwelling is about four inches deep, and half an inch wide; at the bottom it is curved, and there the insect sits in wet weather, and cuts its way out if water gains upon it. It weaves a net at the mouth of the hole. These spiders do not live quite a year. In July they shed their skin, and proceed to propagation; which, from a mutual distrust, as they frequently devour one another, is a work undertaken with great circumspection. They lay about seven hundred and thirty eggs, which hatched in the spring; but the parent does not live to see her progeny, having expired early in the winter. The Ichneumon fly is their most formidable enemy. The bite of the tarantula is said to occasion an inflammation in the part, which in a few hours brings on sickness, difficulty of breathing, and universal faintness. The person afterwards is affected with a delirium, and sometimes is seized with a deep melancholy. The same symptoms return annually, in some cases, for several years; and at last terminate in death. Music, it has been pretended, is the only cure. A musician is brought, who tries a variety of airs, till at last he hits upon one that urges him to dance; the violence of which exercise produces a proportionate agitation of the vital spirits, attended with a consequent degree of perspiration, the certain consequence of which is a cure. Such are the circumstances that have been generally related, and long credited, concerning the bite of this animal. Kircherus, in his Musurgia, gives a very particular account of the symptoms and cure, illustrated by histories of cases. Among these, he mentions a girl, who being bitten by this insect, could be cured only by the music of a drum. He then proceeds to relate, that a certain Spaniard, trusting to the efficacy of music in the cure of the frenzy occasioned by the bite of the tarantula, submitted to be bitten on the hand by two of these creatures, of different colours, and possessed of different qualities. The venom was no sooner diffused about his body, than the symptoms of the disorder began to appear; upon which harpers, pipers, and other musicians, were sent for, who by various kinds of music endeavoured to rouse him from that stupor into which he was fallen: but here it was observed that the bites of the two insects had produced contrary effects; for by one he was incited to dance, and by the other he was restrained therefrom; and in this conflict of nature the patient expired. The same account is given in his Phonurgia Nova, with the addition of a cut representing the insect in two positions, the patient in the action of dancing, together with the musical notes of the tune or air by which in one instance the cure was effected.

In his Musurgia, this author, attempting mechanically to account for the cure of the bite of the tarantula by music, says of the poison, That it is sharp, gnawing, and bilious; and that it is received and incorporated into the medullary substance of the fibres. With respect to the music, he says, That the sounds of chords have a power to rarefy the air to a certain harmonical pitch; and that the air thus rarefied, penetrating the pores of the patient's body, affects the muscles, arteries, and minute fibres, and incites him to dance; which exercise begets a perspiration, in which the poison evaporates.

Unsatisfactory as this theory appears, the belief of this strange phenomenon has prevailed among the ablest of modern physicians. Sir Thomas Brown, so far from disputing it, lays, That since many attest the fact from experience, and that the learned Kircherus hath positively averred it, and set down the songs and tunes solemnly used for the cure of the disease, and since some also affirm that the tarantula itself will dance at the sound of music, he shall not at all question it.*

*Inquiries found of music, he shall not at all question it.*

Farther, that eminent Italian physician of the last century, Baglivi, a native of Apulia, the country where the tarantula is produced, has written a dissertation De anatomia, morbis, et efficiibus tarantulae. In this he describes the region of Apulia where the tarantula is produced, with the anatomy and figure of the insect Aranea and its eggs, illustrated by an engraving; he mentions particularly the symptoms that follow from the bite, and the cure of the disease by music, with a variety of histories of cures thus wrought, many of them communicated by persons who were eye-witnesses of the process.

Ludovicus Valetta, a Celestine monk of Apulia, published at Naples, in the year 1706, a treatise upon this spider; in which he not only answers the objections of those who deny the whole thing, but gives, from his own knowledge, several instances of persons who had suffered this way, some of whom were of great families, and so far from being dissemblers that they would at any rate, to avoid shame, have concealed the misfortune which had befallen them.

The honourable Mr Robert Boyle, in his treatise of Languid and Unheeded Motions, speaking of the bite of the tarantula, and the cure of the disease which follows it by means of music, says, That, having himself had some doubts about the matter, he was, after strict inquiry, convinced that the relations in the main were true.

Lastly, Dr Mead, in his Mechanical Account of Poisons, has given an essay on the tarantula, containing the substance of the above relations, which he endeavours to confirm by his own reasoning thereon.

Notwithstanding the number and weight of these authorities, and the general acquiescence of learned and ingenious men in the opinion that the bite of the tarantula is poisonous, and that the cure of the disorder occasioned by it is effected by music, we have reason to apprehend that the whole is a mistake.

In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1672, p. 466, is an extract of a letter from Dr Thomas Cornelio, a Neapolitan physician, to John Doddington, Esq; his majesty's resident at Venice, communicated by the latter, in which, speaking of his intention to send to Mr Doddington some tarantulas, he says, "Meanwhile I shall not omit to impart to you what was related to me a few days since by a judicious and unprejudiced person; which is, that being in the country of Otranto, where these insects are in great numbers, there was a man who, thinking himself stung by a tarantula, showed in his neck a small speck, about which in a very short time there arose some pimples full of a serous humour; and that, in a few hours after, the poor man was sorely afflicted with very violent symptoms, as syncope, very great agitations, giddiness of the head, and vomiting; but that, without any inclination at all to dance, and without a desire of having any musical instruments, he miserably died within two days. The same person affirmed to me, that all those that think themselves bitten by tarantulas, except such as for evil ends feign themselves to be so, are for the most part young wanton girls, whom the Italian writers call Dolci di Sale; who, by some particular indisposition falling into this melancholy madness, persuade themselves, according to the vulgar prejudice, to have been stung by a tarantula."

Dr Serao, an Italian physician, has written an ingenious book, in which he has effectually exploded this opinion as a popular error; and in the Philosophical Transactions, No. LX. for the year 1770, p. 236, is a letter from Dominico Cirillo, M.D., professor fessor of natural history in the university of Naples, wherein, taking notice of Serao's book, he says, That having had an opportunity of examining the effects of this animal in the province of Taranto, where it is found in great abundance, he finds that the surprising cure of the bite of the tarantula by music has not the least truth in it; and that it is only an invention of the people, who want to get a little money by dancing when they say the tarantism begins. He adds, "I make no doubt but sometimes the heat of the climate contributes very much to warm their imaginations, and throw them into a delirium, which may be in some measure cured by music; but several experiments have been tried with the tarantula, and neither men nor animals after the bite have had any other complaint than a very trifling inflammation upon the part, like that produced by the bite of a scorpion, which goes off by itself without any danger at all. In Sicily, where the summer is still warmer than in any part of the kingdom of Naples, the tarantula is never dangerous; and music is never employed for the cure of the pretended tarantism."

Mr Swinburn, when in the country of the tarantula, was desirous of investigating minutely every particular relative to that insect; but the season was not far enough advanced, and no tarantati (persons bitten, or pretending to be bitten, by the tarantula) had begun to lurk. He prevailed, however, upon a woman who had formerly been bitten, to act the part, and dance the tarantata before him. A great many musicians were summoned, and performed the dance, as all present assured him, to perfection. At first she lolled stupidly on a chair, while the instruments were playing some dull music. They touched, at length, the chord supposed to vibrate to her heart; and up she sprang with a most hideous yell, staggered about the room like a drunken person, holding a handkerchief in both hands, raising them alternately, and moving in very true time. As the music grew brisker, her motions quickened, and she skipped about with great vigour and variety of steps, every now and then shrieking very loud. The scene was far from pleasant; and, at his desire, an end was put to it before the woman was tired. Wherever the tarantati are to dance, he informs us, a place is prepared for them, hung round with bunches of grapes and ribbons. The patients are dressed in white, with red, green, or yellow ribbons, for those are their favourite colours; on their shoulders they cast a white scarf, let their hair fall loose about their ears, and throw their heads as far back as they can bear it. They are exact copies of the ancient priestesses of Bacchus. The orgies of that god, whose worship, under various symbols, was more widely spread over the globe than that of any other divinity, were no doubt performed with energy and enthusiasm by the lively inhabitants of this warm climate. The introduction of Christianity abolished all public exhibitions of these heathenish rites, and the women durst no longer act a frantic part in the character of Bacchantes. Unwilling to give up so darling an amusement, they devised other pretences; and possession by evil spirits may have furnished them with one. Accident may also have led them to a discovery of the tarantula; and, upon the strength of its poison, the Puglian dames still enjoy their old dance, though time has effaced the memory of its ancient name and institution: and this Mr Swinburn takes to be the origin of so strange a practice. If at any time these dancers are really and involuntarily affected, he supposes it can be nothing more than an attack upon their nerves, a species of St Vitus's dance; and he inclines the more to the idea, as there are numberless churches and places throughout these provinces dedicated to that saint.

Many sensible people of the country, however, differ in opinion from Dr Serao and other authors, who have ridiculed the pretended disorder, and affirmed that the venom of this species of spider can produce no effects but such as are common to all others. The Brindifians say, that the tarantulas sent to Naples for the experiment were not of the true sort, but a much larger and more innocent one; and that the length of the journey, and want of food, had weakened their power so much, as to suffer the Doctor or others to put their arm into the bag where they were kept with impunity. They quote many examples of persons bitten as they slept out in the fields during the hot months, who grew languid, stupid, deprived of all courage and elasticity, till the sound of some favourite tune roused them to dance, and throw off the poison. These arguments of theirs, however, Mr Swinburn thinks of little weight: for they acknowledged that elderly persons were more frequently infected than young ones; and that most of them were women, and those unmarried. No person above the lowest rank in life was ever seized with this malady, nor is there an instance of its causing death. The length of the dance, and the patient's powers of bearing such excessive fatigue in the canicular season, prove nothing; because every day, at that time of the year, peasants may be seen dancing with equal spirit and perseverance, though they do not pretend to be seized with the tarantism. The illness may therefore be attributed to hygromics, excessive heat, stoppage of perspiration, and other effects of sleeping out of doors in a hot summer air, which is always extremely dangerous, if not mortal, in most parts of Italy. Violent exercise may have been found to be a certain cure for this disorder, and continued by tradition, though the date and circumstances of this discovery have been long buried in oblivion; a natural passion for dancing, imitation, custom of the country, and a desire of raising contributions upon the spectators, are probably the real motives that inspire the tarantati. Before Serao's experiments, the tarantula had been proved to be harmless, from trials made in 1693 by Clarizio, and in 1740 at Lucera by other naturalists.