University of Virginia Library

THE DEADLY TARANTULA—IN PRINT

The only direct evidence which has come to me regarding the bite of the hundred-legged crawler was from an English naturalist whom I met in Venezuela. He was bitten on the ankle by a centipede nearly a foot long. So severe was the laceration that his sock was clotted with blood before he could get it off. The two punctures were marked. Almost immediately the ankle began to swell. The pain he describes as being equal to a bad toothache. It kept him awake all that night. He had some fever, which, however, he attributes rather to the loss of sleep than to any specific action of the poison, as there were no other general symptoms. In the morning the pain had abated a good deal, and he believes that he could have gone about his pursuits had he been able to get his sock and shoe on. He noted some discoloration about the wound. Late in the afternoon he was hobbling about. A week in a carpet slipper was the extent of disability which he suffered. On these evidences it would seem just, for the present, to set down the scorpion and the centipede as painful, rather than dangerous, assailants.

Diseased imagination could invent no creature more horrific of appearance than the tarantula. Its bristling and hostile aspect, the swift ferocity of its rush, its great size, and its enthusiastic preference for combat as against flight, are sufficient to account for the fear and respect in which it is generally held. But, though several species of the huge spider are native to the United States, and others frequently drop out of banana bunches from South or Central America, to the discomfiture of the unsuspecting grocer, no authentic instance of death from tarantula poison in this country is obtainable. St. Louis papers please copy, particularly that one which, several years ago, announced in appropriately black headlines:

IN TWO WEEKS
Three Men Have Died From Bites of Tarantulas,

proceeding to explain that the victims were banana handlers in the wholesale fruit district. No names were supplied—a common phenomenon in this class of obituary notice. Search in the coroner's records failed to bring to light any case of the sort, and an exhaustive inquiry in the fruit district was equally unproductive. The report was a pure fake.

Apparently of the same nature is the "news story" of a Californian who, presumably mistaking a tarantula for a fragrant floweret, was bitten on the nose and "died in great agony." That, of course, is the proper way to die under such circumstances. They all do it—in print.

Now let us see about the "agony." Herbert H. Smith, the naturalist and collector, saw a man bitten on the bare foot by a tarantula (Mygale) so hard as to draw blood. There was very little swelling, and the man paid no heed to the occurrence, but went on with his work.

I have talked with a Southern Pacific Railroad fireman who was jabbed on the wrist by a large tarantula. Some years before, he had been stung on the cheek by a "bald" hornet. He wasn't inclined to make any choice between the two except that the tarantula (not the wound) "looked a d— sight more scary." He didn't let the bite interfere with his job, even for the day.

On the other hand, Dr. Murray-Aaron records serious symptoms following two bites upon the hand by a large female trapdoor tarantula; pain comparable to that of the worst earache, involuntary twitching of arms, legs, lips, and tongue, great swelling and discoloration of the hand and forearm, and considerable suffering for four days, with occasionally recurrent pains for a month. This, however, was in Haiti. And even there, he believes, death never follows tarantula bite unless the subject is in a depleted state of resistance from blood-disease or other cause.

Under the heading "Fatal Spider Bite" there is a considerable and interesting newspaper bibliography. The details do not analyze well. Often the name of the supposed victim doesn't appear; and where names and specifications are given, the evidence is hardly sufficient, as a rule, to convict the insect of any crime more serious than mayhem. For example, a young woman in Brooklyn awoke one morning to find a swollen spot on her body. On the bed was (according to allegation) a spider. Some ten days later she died. For a long period she had been in ill health. Yet the death was credited to the spider, though specific symptoms of venomous poisoning were lacking.

The instance of a young woman in an Eastern state is significant. Thrusting her foot into an old slipper, she felt a sharp jab upon the point of her index digit. Upon hasty removal of the footgear, she saw, or supposed she saw, a large and ferocious spider dart forth. This, to her mind, was evidence both conclusive and damning. Seizing upon the carving knife, she promptly cut off her perfectly good toe, bound up the wound, and sent for the doctor, thereby blossoming out in next day's print as a "Heroine who had Saved her own life by her Marvelous Presence of Mind." The thoughtful will wonder, however, whether the lady wouldn't have got at the real root of the matter by cutting off her head instead of her toe.