Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1901 — ARE PAINTED TOO [ARTICLE]

ARE PAINTED TOO

Spiders Are Deserving of More Consideration Than They Receive. “There are many kinds of spiders besides those that annoy the housewife with their webs stuck up in the corners of the rooms and in the windows where she has been too busy with the sewing to look after the house much,” says a recent writer on scientific subjects,” but every kind is an appetite on eight legs and thoroughly convinced that no one can be strong and hearty that lives on vegetables. They all spin more or less, whence their name, which is a contraction of spinder or spinner. Also, they bite, and if you listen to all the fool stories that are told, when a spider bites you you will save time by,, sending for the lawyer to make your will and telegraph for the boys to come home at once if they want to see you alive. But I will tell you as between educated people that know a thing or two and do not get scared over every little trifle that a spider’s bite is no worse than a mosquito’s—not bo bad. in fact. A big spider can kill a small bird with its poison, but It only makes a man’s arm swell up and hurt for a day or less and not hurt very much at that. Bertkau could not feel the ordinary domestic spider on the thick skin of his hand, and only between the fingers could the spider make a puncture like that of a dull pin. The worse result was that it itched a little. Blackwall had them draw blood, but that was all. Though one spider bit another so hard that its liver ran out it lived for more than a year afterward. As tor these terrible tarantulas, either the stories told about victims having to dance till they fell down in exhaustion tn order to escape death and

madness were tremendous whoppers or tarantulas don’t bite as bad as they used to. It is true that in those days the Italian violinists had to work overtime composing tarantelles to play for the bitten, but still there were sneering skeptics that said it was all a scheme got up to pass the hat for the wife and family of the suffering man whom a malignant spider had bitten while he was out looking for a job. Dufour had a tarantula that was quite tame and gentle. She took flies from his fingers like a dear thing.”