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Updated: May 31, 2025
The Indian serpent-charmers of whom you have heard know this, and before they allow themselves to be bitten by the deadly cobras, with which they are so fond of playing their feats of jugglery, are careful to extract their sharp poison-fangs.
Of the serpents which are dreaded not for their bite, for they have no poison-fangs but for their great strength and daring, and for the way in which they coil round their victims, crushing them to death in their terrible embrace the most dangerous are the Python of the Old World, and the Boa-constrictor of the New.
There is no getting away from it: either the precursor of the Calicurgi, that slaughterer of Scorpions, knew her trade thoroughly, or else the continuation of her race became impossible, even as it would be impossible to keep up the race of the Tarantula-killer without the dagger-thrust that paralyses the Spider's poison-fangs.
She has a better weapon than the bestiarius' trident: she has her poison-fangs. She gnaws at the Locust, without undue persistence, and then withdraws, leaving the torpid patient to pine away.
One morning, I catch the two harridans fighting out their quarrel on the floor. The loser is laid flat upon her back; the victress, belly to belly with her adversary, clutches her with her legs and prevents her from moving a limb. Both have their poison-fangs wide open, ready to bite without yet daring, so mutually formidable are they.
Though you may admire the "spotted snakes" at a safe distance, in their cages, I know you will not be sorry to hear that in England we have but two kinds the Ringed or Grass snake, which has no poison-fangs, and is perfectly harmless, feeding upon the frogs which it finds in the marshy places which are its home, and upon mice and young birds; and the common Viper or Adder, which has two poison-fangs, but is not ready to use them, unless it is trodden on, or otherwise provoked.
When the prey is solidly bound, a prick is carefully administered with the poison-fangs; then the Spider retires, waiting for the death-throes to calm down, after which the huntress comes back to the game. In these conditions, there is no serious danger. In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier.
If, by some accident, it become detached from the fastening to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasure and lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her. I myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of the poison-fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug in one direction while the Lycosa tugs in the other.
The poison-fangs are no longer irritable when tickled with my straw: a fresh proof, added to those of analogy, to show that the Lycosa, like the Epeira, has been stung in the mouth. The palpi, on the other hand, are and will be for weeks highly irritable and mobile. I wish to emphasise this point, the importance of which will be recognized presently.
Where did the murderess strike her? That is easily ascertained: the Tarantula has not let go; and her fangs are planted in the nape of the neck. The assassin has the knowledge which I suspected: she has made for the essentially vital centre, she has stung the insect's cervical ganglia with her poison-fangs. In short, she has bitten the only point a lesion in which produces sudden death.
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