she would remain coy and motionless, at a slight distance from the
threshold, which she did not think it opportune to cross. Her
patience outlasted mine. In that case, I employed the following
tactics: after making sure of the Lycosa's position and the direction
of the tunnel, I drove a knife into it on the slant, so as to take the
animal in the rear and cut off its retreat by stopping up the burrow.
I seldom failed in my attempt, especially in soil that was not stony.
In these critical circumstances, either the Tarantula took fright and
deserted her lair for the open, or else she stubbornly remained with
her back to the blade. I would then give a sudden jerk to the knife,
which flung both the earth and the Lycosa to a distance, enabling me
to capture her. By employing this hunting-method, I sometimes caught
as many as fifteen Tarantulae within the space of an hour.

'In a few cases, in which the Tarantula was under no misapprehension
as to the trap which I was setting for her, I was not a little
surprised, when I pushed the stalk far enough down to twist it round
her hiding-place, to see her play with the spikelet more or less
contemptuously and push it away with her legs, without troubling to
retreat to the back of her lair.

'The Apulian peasants, according to Baglivi's {4} account, also hunt
the Tarantula by imitating the humming of an insect with an oat-stalk
at the entrance to her burrow. I quote the passage:

'"_Ruricolae nostri quando eas captare volunt, ad illorum latibula
accedunt, tenuisque avenacae fistulae sonum, apum murmuri non
absimilem, modulantur. Quo audito, ferox exit Tarentula ut muscas vel
alia hujus modi insecta, quorum murmur esse putat, captat; captatur
tamen ista a rustico insidiatore_." {5}