diff --git a/tests/test_crawler.py b/tests/test_crawler.py
index a80ad4388..be067155e 100644
--- a/tests/test_crawler.py
+++ b/tests/test_crawler.py
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ class CrawlerLoggingTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
             }
 
         configure_logging()
-        crawler = Crawler(MySpider, {})
+        Crawler(MySpider, {})
         logging.debug('debug message')
 
         with open(log_file, 'rb') as fo: