- tulas are often seen measuring two inches in the
spread."
Mr. Treadwell was quite as much impressed as Dr. Lanzwert with the belief that the bite of these spiders is fatal, but it does not appear that either of these gentlemen have obtained conclusive evidence in support of this allegation.
I have occasionally been bitten by the trap-door spiders in South France, but have never experienced the slightest subsequent inconvenience, nor was there any trace of inflammation or poisoning about the punctures which they made. Mr. Blackwall[1] has made a very careful set of observations on this head, and has caused some of the largest species of British spiders to bite his finger and wrist until the blood flowed, without the slightest ill effects. He also inoculated himself at the same time with the poisonous secretion of the spider and with that of the wasp; when the latter wound became extremely painful, while the former was not perceptibly aggravated. Mr. Blackwall obtained the spiders' poison by causing a spider to seize a slip of clean glass with its mandibles, when a small quantity of a liquid showing a slightly acid reaction was deposited.
Mr. Treadwell informed me that these Californian trap-door spiders leave their nests in the daytime, and may be seen walking by the roadside, though they are always prepared to hurry back to their nests on the approach of danger.
I received the spider which I have represented at
- ↑ Mr. J. Blackwall, Researches in Zoology, ed. 2, 1873; chapter on "The Poison of the Araneidea," pp. 240-256.
