Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1884-11-12
ABOUT Tarantulas.

A boy from the up country brought IN
tarantula toTombstone as big;as man s
hand, and exhibited it for nickel. At
the hotel in the evening some OF the
oldest inhabitants got to talking about
spiders and such things. One man
said it was a well-established fact that
nobody had ever been killed by the
bite of tarantula or a centipede. This
brought ont a chorus of voices IN
dissent Nearly everybody else had
known of cases where men had died In
more or less torment as result OF
being stung by these insects.
Eleven years ago, said represcn-
tative citizen, "when there wasn't any
such pleasure in travelling through these
parts as there Is now, | camped out one
night ,ust across the New Mexico line
with a party of prospectors. We we're
all comparatively new, and we didn't
know anything about tarantulas. When
we selected our camping place we
noticed three or four drab-colored
things, looking like dice boxes with
covers, lying on the ground, but we
paid no attention TO them. 1t was
chilly. and we had blazing fire. Some
time in the night Gus Peterson startled
us with An unearthly yell, and, running
to him, we found that he was IN death
agony. We thought he had been shot,
and 1 guess he did too. He didn't live
long enough though to get any very
clear idea of what killed him. He
doubled up like jack knife, and then
spun around like top. Then he
would straighten out stiff for minute,
and we'd think he was dead, again.
We couldn't do anything with him He
died in about an hour in awful torment.
The next day we examined him and
found bite of some kind on his lett
breast, The flesh was purple and
swollen. Some one said it must have
been snake or tarantula-
did you ever see tarantula?' l
asked of the crowd.
Zone man said he had seen one dead
on q card once, but none of us had ever
seen one alive. Just then Conkey, one
of the party, picked up one of the mud
like dice boxes, with the remark: What
the devil are these things. boys?' As he
held it up the cover lifted, and out
crawled a spider with five or six legs
two inches long. he gave yell, and
We all ran.
I" That's tarantula, sure, said the
man who seen one dead. After while
we crept back to the camp, and found
that we had slept in regular nest of
of them. They live In these little
boxes, which they make with astonish-
ing precision. The cover to the box is
nicely hung on hinges, and can he
raised by the tarantula from the inside
very easily. After he makes his exit it
falls back into place, fitting so snugly
that it all looks like one piece. When
he wants to get in he raises it with one
OF his fiddlers. and then lets it down
after he has entered. They are very
knowing animals, and there can't any
one tell me that their sting is not fatal,
for I've seen it.
A Mexican then said he once saw a
man who had been bitten by a tarantu-
la in Sonora cured by dosing him
with whisky. "We happened to have
Jug" he said, apologetically, ''and when
We made up our minds what the trouble
was We poured the whisky down him.
He was q Mexican and il did HIM good.
At first he appeared as if ne had the
detiriuni trenlelas, but after We had
filed hIm full he went to sleep, and
when he came to himself again he was
ont of pain. he never was any good
after that, though. He was kind of
lame and rickety, and his mind was
little unbalanced. Sometime after that
he killed man, but they let him go
because he had tarantula bite and
was not responsible. That's the only
time that / ever knew anything to save
a man who had been bitten. l knew
one man who died instantly and three
or four others who suffered in various
WAYS until death relieved them. We
tried to make one of them believe that
he was scratching him elf to death.
That's what some fellows try TO say
about these things, but it's all bosh. A
tarantula bite in Mexico means all the
whisky the victim can hold, and no
Mexican will die under such circum-
Stances If he can help it
'I'll tell you what makes some peO-
pie believe that tarantulas and cent?
pedes can't hurt anybody. Every little
while in Mexico some fellow who is
mighty dry makes a tremendous fuss
about being bitten. and after he has
been dosed with free whisky for few
days he RECEIVERS. Now, the truth is
these dead beats were not bitten at all.
Nothing moves the sympathy OF a
Mexican like tarsntula bite, and l am
sorry to say that frauds take advantage
of this very frequently.
The last man who spoke said he knew
of a case In Grass valley, Cal, where a
man was bitten on the arm by a cent?
pede, and took TO his bed never to rise
again. When 1t became obvious that
something must be done TO save his life
a surgeon cut the arm off. For a time
he seemed to be suffering only from
ampuiation, but the poison at length
appeared in the other arm, and that
was also amputated. He fingered for a
long time in pain, and finally died very
suddenly one day, the poison having
reached his heart.