The craft and apparent treachery of its actions; -its ferocity even to its own kind; tiie dark, sombre colors; the hairiness; and in many species the swollen, bloated form of the abdomen ; the repulsive aspect of the head and mouth; and, in particular, the fatality of the venom injected by those formidable fangs — sufficiently warrant the general dislike in which the A rachnida are held, even though we readily grant that they are but fulfill- ing the instinct which an all-wise God has implanted in them, and concede their utility even to man in di- minishing the swarms of annoying insects. The organs
IX.— N N N
of destruction in a spider form an inter- esting study, and <'an " be examined to great advantage in the slough, or cast skin, which we so often find in the haunts of these creatures. There are in the front of the head — in Clubiuna airox, for example, a
common species Common Spider (O?{6io«a ofroa;).
two stout brown organs, which are the representatives of the antennae in insects, though very much modified both in form and function. They are here the effective weap- ons of attack. Each consists of two joints — the basal one, which forms the most conspicuous portion of the organ, and the terminal one, which is the fang. The former is a thick hollow case, somewhat cylindrical, but flattened sidewise, formed of stiff chitine, covered with minute transverse ridges on its whole surface, like the marks left on the sand by the rippling wavelets, and studded with stout coarse black hair. Its extremi- ty is cut off obliquely, and forms a furrow, the edges of which are beset with polished conical points resembling teeth. To the upjier end of this furrowed case is fixed by a hinge-joint the fang, which is a curved claw-like organ, formed of hard chitine, and consisting of two parts — a swollen oval base, which is highly polij-hed, and a more slender tip, the surface of which has a silky lustre, from being covered with very fine and close-set longitudinal grooves. This whole organ falls into the furrow of the basal joint when not in use, exactly as the blade of a clasp-knife shuts into the haft; but when the animal is excited, either to defend itself or to attack its prey, the fang becomes stifHy erected. By tm-iiiiig the object on its axis under the microscope, and examin- ing the extreme tip of the fang, we maj- see that it is not brought to a fine point, but that it has the appear- ance of having been cut off slant-wise just at the tip; and that it is tubular. Now this is a provision for the speedy infiiction of death upon the victim; for both the fang and the thick basal joint are permeated by a slender membranous tube, which is the poison duct, and which terminates at the open extremity of the former, while at the other end it communicates with a lengthened oval sac where the venom is secreted. This, of course, we should not see in the slough, for it is not cast with the exuvire, but retained in the interior of the body ; but in life it is a sac extending into the cephalo- thorax — as that part of the body which carries the legs is called — and covered with spiral folds produced by the arrangement of the fibres of its contractile tissue. When the spider attacks a fly, it plunges into its vic- tim the two fangs, the action of which is downward, and not right and left, like that of the jaws of insects. At the same instant a drop of poisoii is secreted in each gland, which, oozing through the duct, escapes from the perforated end of the fang into the wound, and rapidly produces death. The fangs are then claspeil down, car- rying the prey, which the}' powerfidly press against the toothed edges of the stout basal piece, by which means the nutritive Hiuds of the prey are pressed out and taken into the mouth; after which the dried and empty skin is rejected. The poison is of an acid nature, as experi- ments performed with irritated spiders prove, litmus paper pierced by them becoming red as far around the perforation as the emitted fluid spreads, — Fairbairn.
There are very many species of spider in Palestine: some which spin webs like the common garden spider; some which dig stditerranean cells, and make doors in them, like the well-known trap-door spider of Southern Europe; and some which have no web, but chase their prej- upon the gromid, like the hunting and wolf spiders {\\om\, Bible AmmiiIs,\).MA). Notice is taken in the Bible, however, only of those that spin webs, but the
SPIEKER
930
SPIES
partimilar species is not imlicatod. A venomous spider is ni.iiciil l>v several travellers (Kitlo, J'/iys. JJist. of /'«/.:»/. p. 4 18).
2. Seiiiiiiiiilh (n^*;":i;; Sept. ira\a/3(ur;/c ; Chald. Xn*:pS: yulii.gltllio; translated by tiie A. V. "spider" in I'mv. xxx, 'IH, the only passage where the word is found) lijus reference, according to most interpreters, to s.nie kind of lizard (IJochart, llitroz. ii. .t1I»). It is nieniioned by S.lomon as one of the four things that are exceeding clever, though tliey be little upon earth. '• riie seiiuimiih taketh hold v.ith her hands, and is in kings' palaces." This term exists in the modern (Jreek language under the form aa^ui^ur^oc. '"(iuem Gneci hiidie aafiidfiii'ini' vocant, antiipue (Jriecia; est aaKa- Xaiiio-inj, id est stellio — qnx vox pura Hebraica est et reperitur in Prov. xxx, 28, n"";"^i" " (Salmasii J'lin. Erercif. p. 817, b. G.). — Smith. If a lizard be indicated. it must evidently be some species of gecko, a notice of which genus of animals is given under the article Li/Aiii>. Tims the Sept. rendering designates a cling- ing lizard, alile to hold on against gravity, and most modern commentators incline to follow this interpreta- tion. However, as the gecko could never be other than a casn.ll intruder into a paLice, and as the selection of a dwelling, implying sagacity, seems indicated bj- the moralist, some are rather disposed to accept the render- ing of our ICnglish Version, and to understand the house- spider (Ariiiii'ii Jimiesticii), which mounts l)y means of her •• hands" to secure corners, even in royal palaces, and there makes her home.