184

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

enough to pierce through a leather glove, and their webscapable of holding the huge grass-hoppers or locusts of thesort that threw Mr. A’Court into hysterics. In order tobecome acquainted with the works of nature we must lookvery closely into them. Naturalists having been told thatat Tarentum alone is the Tarantula to be found, have notgiven themselves the trouble to search for them elsewhere.In a garden close to the foot of the Castle Santelmo, atNaples , I one day, in searching for scorpions, found twoTarantulas . Before I could get up to them or seize them,they retreated into their holes in the parched hard ground,which was sheltered by some cacti, prickly fig plants. Butthey did not know that I had a strong blade about me, so Idug very carefully down, till I brought their ugly personsto light. One of them was killed in the operation; theother I captured alive and took him home, and kept him ina narrow wired mouse-trap for more than a month. Atfirst he would not eat, but after about a week he tookadvice, and sucked the juice of several A’Court grass-hoppers that I put into his company. Wishing to try hisreputed venomous powers, and with the viper affair fresh inmy recollection, I did not. like to try his forceps upon one ofmy own fingers, so I placed a sprightly little mouse withinhis cage, in which there was not much room for their un-civilly keeping at a distance, like two Englishmen in acoffee-room. The mouse disdained the acquaintance, but heof Tarentum, irritated by the intrusion of the mouse atevery move, upon his (perhaps gouty) toes, situate at theextremities of such extensive legs, leapt several times acrossthe eyes and ears of mistress mouse, who (thinking no onesaw her) gave him a delicate bite, and smashed a leg. Thespider and the mouse had instantly a “ scrambling set to,”which in a twinkling ended in the death of “ daddy longlegs.” But more, the mouse having been purposely, by