"عبر بلاد فارس على سرج ركوب جانبي" [‎١‎٠‎٣] (٣٦٠/١٣٤)

OLLA PODRIDA
103
My most exciting find was a large tarantula, I was
beetle-hunting in the desert, when a big yellow and
scarlet object appeared from under a patch of vetch. For
an instant I thought it was a frog; but a glance at its
hairy legs, big eyes, and beak-like mouth undeceived me,
and I began my hunt with considerable trepidation,
Nasrullah Khan helping me to get the loudly hissing
spider into my net. Then came the unnerving operation
of securing it safely in the lethal bottle, the mouth of
which was sadly small for such big game, and it was a
triumphant moment when I corked down the fiercest and
most active insect I had ever come across. Once inside,
it speedily collapsed from the fumes of the naphthaline,
and when I examined it at leisure I found that its head
and body measured three inches. The Governor's doctor
calling next day said that he did not think its bite was
so venomous as the Persians say, because a cat belonging
to him had once been bitten by a very large tarantula
and had recovered after suffering from a sort of paralysis
for twenty days, during which she was perpetually shiver
ing. He affirmed that they could leap considerable
distances if disturbed, and had been known to attack men
in this way. However, this assertion did not prevent me
from applying the proverbial grain of salt to Nasrullah
Khan's Munchausen-like story of how one of his acquaint
ances, when out riding, had been pursued so closely by
a tarantula that he had been forced to gallop hard to
escape from it!
Very large hornets with cinnamon and yellow-banded
bodies abounded during the spring, but appeared to be
good-natured insects, although it was rather alarming at
first when they came booming into the room, blundedng