Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1878 — Curious Nest of a Poisonous Insect. [ARTICLE]

Curious Nest of a Poisonous Insect.

The nest of the tarantula, occasionally found, excites the admiration of both old and young, and, indeed, nothing could be more ingeniously contrived. It is a subterranean house about the size and shape of a coooanut of medium growth, and is made of small pebbles and grains of sand glued together with some viscid matter. Its interior is lined with a silky material as fine and white as satm. Just at the surface of the ground is a circular opening nearly an inch in diameter. Into this fits a little door or lid made of sand and fine gravel glued together. This lid is lined with the same silken stuff as the nest proper, and at one side has a hinge made of many strands of the same. This door the tarantula can' open and close at pleasure. When the lid is closed it is almost impossible to find the nest, as owing to the sand and gravel on its upper side it presents the same appearance as the surrounding ground, from which were gathered the materials of which it was constructed. —Virginia City (Nev.) Enterprise. _ Thu artesian well of Charleston, S. C., furnishes more water than the city requires.