Note 1157 — ORDER XII. ARACHNIDA.1083

Pliny says the Spider, poised in its web, will throw itself upon the head of a serpent as it lies stretched beneath the shade of the tree where it has built, and with its bite pierce its brain; such is the shock, he continues, that the creature will hiss from time to time, and then, seized with vertigo, coil round and round, while it finds itself unable to take to flight, or so much as to break the web of the Spider, as it hangs suspended above; this scene, he concludes, only ends with its death.—Nat. Hist., x. 95.