I found an article in an old French technical magazine La Nature from 1897 about a tin toy made by Martin.
This special piece is put in motion when the fly is hanging on a hook on the wall and then by stretching the cord, the spider is crawling to the fly.
It was first made in 1896
length approx 11cm (4,33 inch)
Martin article number is 151
A free translation of the above text.
SMALL INVENTIONS
The Spider and the Fly.
The spider has a habit of stretching webs and rushing for flies or other insects that fall in its nets.
The toy that we describe is intended to recall these mores of the spider.
We see in no 1 of the figure a fly that is fixed by a hook against the wall.
Below is a spider.
It suffices to pull a string, and one immediately sees it climbing slowly, alternately moving its two long, very characteristic legs.
Apart from the interest that this toy has.
He is curious from a mechanical point of view.
We see in no 2 the underside of the beast with the internal mechanism.
A cord is fixed at the top right on the spider and then comes to be routed on a small pulley placed inside the fly.
This cord is then wound on another pulley attached to the lower part of the spider.
By pulling on the cord, the spider is thus given a movement, the fly being fixed against the wall.
The pulley in the spider has a metal rod fixed on the periphery, as shown in our drawing. This metal rod is also movebel around a fixed point and can move successively to the right and to the left according to the movements of the pulley.
It carries at its other end the horizontal rod which maintains the legs of the spider and it thus transmits to them the movement of which we spoke above.
This toy is found at M. P. Bertrand, 19, rue Mute-ville, in Paris.
