It will be remembered that among the tales told by "a great traveller" to Pepys was one on the subject of the tarantula. He says that all the harvest long (about which time they are most busy) there are fiddlers go up and down the fields everywhere in expectation of being hired by those who are stung. Of the disease there is no doubt, and that it could be cured by dancing stimulated by music is a natural conclusion. Each patient indulged in long and violent exercise, which produced profuse perspiration; he then fell exhausted, slept calmly, and awoke cured. For the best part of a day Tom lay stretched on his face in the sun. Like David the psalmist, he refused to be comforted. A profound and silent melancholy subdued the wandering spirit which invariably manifests itself on Sunday. He just "sweated out" the day he usually devotes to hunting, and on Monday was himself again, save for a greyish blue tinge encircling each of the little wounds on his arm. Though it is certain that the tarantula of Italy and the spider which robbed Tom of his Sunday are of different species, yet one is struck by the similarity of the toxic effects of the bite with that of the manifestations of the disease of tarantismus. The fact that after a good sweating--hot sand and unshaded sun are fairly active sudorifics--all untoward effects (physical and mental) passed away seems to suggest close intimacy between the symptoms of the poison of tarantula and the disease. I do not apologise for thus gravely recording an incident of the bush which has neither humour nor romance to recommend it, because I think, friendly as I am to the "tarantula," the truth--the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth--should be told about him. Like the pet pussy-cat, "if you don't hurt him he'll do you no harm"; but put him in a tight corner and offer him violence and he will heroically defend himself and be very nasty about it. Having studied Tom's demeanour while under the effects of the poison, I am satisfied that if one desires a visit from "divinest melancholy" without any of the thrills of poetry, let him provoke an angry tarantula to assault him. All "vain, deluding joys" will pass away, and for twenty-four hours he will be as dull as a log, and as sweatful as a fat Southerner in a canefield. The local name of the house-haunting "tarantula," though befitting and unique, imposes a singularly slight strain upon the resources of the alphabet. What combination of eight letters could be softer and more coaxing? And yet the startled Eves of Dunk Island were wont not only to specialise the spider but to shriek out affright at its unexpected presence by the exclamation "Oo-boo-boo!"