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number of' openings, some say a thousand, through which issues the clammy substance that forms its threads, so that every thread consists of a multitude of finer ones. rIlIle fangs or piercers, with which it wounds its prey, are strong, curved, sharp-pointed, and furnished on the inside, near the end, with an oblong hole, through which it discharges a poisonous fluid into the wound the point has made. The feet have each two claws, provided on their under side with several parallel spines, resembling the teeth of a comb, with which the creature disposes the threads of its web with the greatest regularity. Notwithstanding the beauty of this spider, there is an appearance of malignity and ferocity in its aspect, common to the whole tribe, that is extremely forbidding.

The Tarantula, of which you have heard so many incredible tales, all of them discarded by the rational examination of modern philosophers, is a native of the southern parts of Italy, and is generally found on dry and sunny plains. It is of a great size, and of a brown coIoir, marked on the back of the abdomen by a row of three-cornered black spots, with white edges.

The Aranea a~uatica is a middle-sized
apecies, of a deep chesnut colour, residing
entirely