The Book of the Spider
From Arachnophobia to the Love of Spiders
by Paul HillyardDrugged spiders spin distorted webs. Spider fighters of South Africa, Malaysia, and the Philipines feeds dragonflies to spiders before hunts. All but one type of known spiders use poison; 1/70th are poisonous to humans. Miss Muffet of arachnophobic fame was the daughter of a man who kept spiders and lectured on their greatness and beauty. The tarantula was blamed in Italy for causing a fever in which victims needed to dance and sweat to live(giving name to the dance called the tarantula), but the real culprit was a Mediterranean black widow. The cross hairs of telescopic guns were spider hairs during WWII. Chinese farmers build houses for hibernating spiders so that the spiders will eat the pests in their fields. Whereas most spider webs have more radii on the bottom half, those built by astronaut spiders were symmetrical. Professor B.G. Wilder discovered that
Nephila plumipes spiders could purposely change the color and thickness of their silk, in 1865.
Hillyard, in describing the attitudes on people towards spiders, shows a bell graph with those who enjoy spiders at one end and arachnophobes at the other end. Those who are apprehensive towards spiders are in the middle. Although Hillyard expresses the hope that his book will allow those who dislike or fear spiders to gain real knowledge and understanding of spiders, I would not recommend this book to anyone with anything greater than apprehension towards spiders. Hillyard's chapter on spiders who
are dangerous to humans will frighten, and his enthusiastic descriptions of spider hunting may make you more convinced of the spider's menace. The author has a very obvious love of spiders which shines throughout the book, and is at times infectious. Citations of other spider accounts are frequent throughput this book. Hillyard cites a wide range of sources. While he prefers to cite who by far predate him, he cites his contemporaries as well.
Charlotte's Web is also frequently quoted. Hillyard refers the reader to other parts of the book with annoying frequency; he already provides an index, why do I need an interruption in my reading? Since this book was published in 1994, some parts are probably out of date. For example, the U.S. military does not generally run the same tests for a decade, so either spider's silk has already proven useful for bullet proof vests, or it hasn't. (Just googled it: research is still ongoing- oops.)
Question: Are you afraid of spiders? What types of spiders have you seen?
Happy reading.
