The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-02-14
A Pasadena Man Who Has Studied
Their Characteristics.

From the New York Tribune.
Thousands of tarantulas and many
horned toads, scorpions, centipedes and
tarantula hawks are taken from South
ern California each year to satisfy the
Eastern appetite for curious bugs w.
B. Crockatt, of Pasadena hires Mex
leans, Indians and white men from
Santa Barbara to San Diego to collect
for him, yet the curio stores he supplies
cannot fill the orders they get. The
appetite for the curio bug appears to
be growing beyond the supply
The average person might hunt all
day now and not find a horned toad.
yet Crockatt can go into the desert
and return in a day with a sack full
of crawling, biting, stinging and other
wise disreputable things. He has
learned many things about their habits,
but he has paid the price. He has been
bitten six times in one week by scor-
pions, once or twice by tarantulas,
and has almost died from the deadly
black spiders caress. There isn't much
danger from death by the nibble of
tarantula, centipede or scorpion unless
the victims blood is in a bad condi-
ton. The scorpion, known among his
enemies as land lobster" . has
hard shell, while the centipede, which
burrows in the earth, is soft. Despite
his hard covering, the scorpion seldom
gets away with a tarantula, though
he does sometimes. The scorpion seizes
the tarantula with his nippers, and
bends his tail, that looks like an
electric car trolley pole, back over his
thoraN and head, and tries to sting his
enemy. If he can preform this operation
before the tarantula brushes him with
his nippers, he wins.
Much has been told of the strength
of a tarantula's nippers, and science
seems unable to account for those
terrible instruments. Crockatt says he
has found by experiment that they are
capable of making a slight dent in
iron. Yet the arm of the appendage
is so soft that it can be easily torn off
with the fingers after the death of the
insect. The big spider has been known
to kill young birds and mice and part
tally devour them. His favorite dainty
is his next door neighbor, the trapdoor
spider. Though the tarantula is King
on the Adobe Hills among crawling
things, he has one deadly enemy, the
tarantula hawk, gay winged, pur-
pie bodied inchneumon fly, not
nearly as big as the spider which laugh
him to scorn. Mr. Crockatt says Of his
work;
1 once followed tarantula and taran-
tula hawk half mile, just to see how
the hawk conducted his attack. saw,
and understood. for the hawk lit on
my head and stung through my cap,in-
f1icting' an unpleasant wound AS soon
as hawk spies tarantula he poises
over him and darts down, the way a
chicken hawk does over his prey. That's
how he gets his name. He trys to sting
ha q vii -
back. If the tarantula sees the hawk he
Immediately turns on his back, with his
feet in the air as a defence. The attact-
ing party then goes away, only to re-
turn when the spider starts on. 1 think
the hawk gets his prey soon or late,
because he never gives up. have
known him to run down the tarantula' s
hole after his meat. He drags the cow
ardy king away to a secluded nook and
sucks his blood. When tarantulas are
out of season the hawk turns vege-
tartan and sucks flowers, the milkweed
being a favorite.
The tarantula and a young snake
make an interesting combat. / saw a
fight once. The snake wound round the
spider and crushed him, but the tarant-
ula had contrived TO bite his feet sew
eral times and the snake, too, after
wards died. 1t was a fight to finish.
For tourists trade the tarantula is
the most valuable specimen. They
live in a hole in the adobe hills from
Santa Barbara south into Mexico. being
more poisonous nearer the equator as
is the case with all venomous things.
Sometimes they dig their own holes
with their front paws. like dogs: some
times they remodel gopher and rat
holes. The female Is the worker. and
perhaps eats her husband. At any rate,