Okay, I know this one is going to be a weird question if the title and NSFW tag didn't already hint at that.

Between July 1879 and December 1880, there was a magazine published in London called The Pearl which included erotic stories, jokes, limericks, and nursery rhymes, which I stumbled upon while looking for an origin for the "there once was a man from Nantucket" limerick (which, side note, the magazine published dozens of these humorous little rhymes about men from all different places). While going through the nursery rhyme sections, I ran across this one in volume 6 published in December 1879:

"A sailor on board the Duke of Edinburgh's yacht had a reputation as an impromptu poet. The following was one of his efforts before the Duchess:

He was a bloody sparrow. Lived up a bloody spout; There came a bloody thunderstorm. And washed the bugger out.

But in a bloody minute, They stopped the bloody rain; So the bloody little sparrow. Went up the spout again.

After which, he said: "I don't think much of it myself, marm, but my mates say it's bloody fine." "

The dirty little nursery rhyme is clearly similar to the itsy bitsy spider climbing up the water spout, being washed out by a storm, the rain stops, and up it goes again.

So, I tried looking up the origins of the itsy-bitsy spider, but the earliest I can find a reference to it is in 1910, which is 31 years after this version in The Pearl was published.

So I'm wondering if anyone knows of an earlier reference to the spider, or could it be that the innocent song we teach to children derived from a dirty joke?