Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-05
CALIFORNIA STUFFED SPIDERS

If there is any one feature for which
southern California is especially noted it is
her spiders. When it comes to real live.
energetic, ugly, vicious, poisonous spider,
southern California can enter prize animals
at any fair. The most precious trophies
the tourists bear away from this coast are,
In all probability, the neat cards decorated
with these monsters of the insect world.
| Every one is familiar with the trap door
and nest OF this cunning but ugly creation,
and OF which strange little Installations
every adobe ranch is full. So densely pop
alated with these beautifully lined tunnels
are some OF the sunny, quiet valleys among
the foothills that close inspection will re-
veal their almost invisible trap-doors hardly
foot apart. Yet, in spite of this. hardly
living animal will be seen. There is q
legitimate demand for prepared specimens
both at wholesale and retail. When first
brought IN by the quick keyed, dexterous
young Spaniards who supply most of them,
they are deprived of what life is left in
their bodies by poisonous fumes or other
application of poison. After the taxiderm.
list has made sure they are quite dead
wise precsution--he cuts them open on the
under side, and, removing the loose matter
therefrom, carefully stuffs them with cot
ton. This stuffug process is quite a deli.
cate operation, and requires no little mack
to perform neatly and successfully without
injuring the animal and bringing it back to
its normal shape and size. A humming-
bird would seem to be about as small
an object as could easily be put through
this painstaking operation, let alone
an insect even of the size Of a tar
antula. This having been completed, the
spider is placed upon a board and properly
held in position by pins, one through the
body and one in each foot and set IN the
sun to dry. The sale of them in this city
is carried on both at wholesale aud retail,
several parties here carrying on the bust
ness The retail price is 80 cents apiece,
one merchant disposing Of many dozen a
year in that way. The wholesale opera
history stores OF San Francisco, which es-
prepared specimens, the supply seeming to
never crowd the demand. Hayward &
Muzzall, of this city, who have dealt
heavily in this branch of industry, have
sold several hundred in year and charged
for them 81 per dozen, Several men in
Los Angeles also carry on the business,
AHu Ouc laAlueIullSL III particular has maui
a very remunerative occupation OF the
preparation of cases containing nests so
arranged as to give full view OF their in
ternal structure, and in placing in natural
position tsrantua as and their young. Some
OF his work is very fine; one, indeed, was
sold for $50 to the proprietor of a circus
and menagerie, and is doubtless now as.
tonishing the natives in different parts of
the country. As, OF course, is well known,
these spiders are found within a wide ra-
dius west of the Rocky Mountains, but
Ariz IA sni sou hern Cal tornis can claim
the most bouuteous supply, and perhaps
the biggest, ugliest individual specimens.
In spite OF their great numbers few in.
stances occur where people have been Bit
ten by them, and fatal effects have never
come to the knowledge OF this writer the
tarantulas generally being more anxious
than the other party to get out of the
way. H snce it is that the great precau-
tons taken by hunting and fishing parties
to secure generous supplies of medicine
against tsrantula bites is an unnecessary
trouble Santa Barbara Independent.