So gross has been the exaggeration and so baseless the popular fear regarding spiders that entomologists have been inclined to discredit all accounts of serious injury from their bites. Not only have the most circumstantial of newspaper accounts proved to be without foundation but there are on record a number of cases where the bite of many of the commoner species have been intentionally provoked and where the effect has been insignificant. Some years ago the senior author personally experimented with a number of the largest of our northern species, and with unexpected results. The first surprise was that the spiders were very unwilling to bite and that it required a considerable effort to get them to attempt to do so. In the second place, most of those experimented with were unable to pierce the skin of the palm or the back of the hand, but had to be applied to the thin skin between the fingers before they were able to draw blood. Unfortunately, no special attempt was made to determine, at the time, the species experimented with, but among them were _Theridion tepidariorum_, _Miranda aurantia_ (_Argiopa_), _Metargiope trifasciata_, _Marxia stellata_, _Aranea trifolium_, _Misumena vatia_, and _Agelena nævia_. In no case was the bite more severe than a pin prick and though in some cases the sensation seemed to last longer, it was probably due to the fact that the mind was intent upon the experiment. [Illustration: 6. An American tarantula (Eurypelma hentzii). Natural size. After Comstock.] Similar experiments were carried out by Blackwell (1855), who believed that in the case of insects bitten, death did not result any more promptly than it would have from a purely mechanical injury of equal extent. He was inclined to regard all accounts of serious injury to man as baseless. The question cannot be so summarily dismissed, and we shall now consider some of the groups which have been more explicitly implicated. THE TARANTULAS.--In popular usage, the term "tarantula" is loosely applied to any one of a number of large spiders. The famous tarantulas of southern Europe, whose bites were supposed to cause the dancing mania, were Lycosidæ, or wolf-spiders. Though various species of this group were doubtless so designated, the one which seems to have been most implicated was _Lycosa tarantula_ (L.), (fig. 4). On the other hand, in this country, though there are many Lycosidæ, the term "tarantula" has been applied to members of the superfamily Avicularoidea (fig. 6), including the bird-spiders. Of the Old World Lycosidæ there is no doubt that several species were implicated as the supposed cause of the tarantism. In fact, as we have already noted, the blame was sometimes attached to a scorpion. However, there seems to be no doubt that most of the accounts refer to the spider known as _Lycosa tarantula_.