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Next, the Epeira, no matter which, young or old, hurriedly flings herself upon the little central cushion, pulls it out and rolls it into a ball which I expected to see thrown away. But no: her thrifty nature does not permit this waste.
The Epeira with the three white crosses, the Spider who has supplied us with these first data concerning the process of dissemination, is endowed with a moderate maternal industry. As a receptacle for the eggs, she weaves a mere pill of silk. Her work is modest indeed beside the Banded Epeira's balloons. I looked to these to supply me with fuller documents.
At last, the clean-bled remains are flung out of the net and the Spider returns to her ambush in the centre of the web. What the Epeira sucks is not a corpse, but a numbed body. If I remove the Locust immediately after he has been bitten and release him from the silken sheath, the patient recovers his strength to such an extent that he seems, at first, to have suffered no injury.
After setting a few spokes in one direction, the Epeira runs across to the other side to draw some in the opposite direction. These sudden changes of course are highly logical; they show us how proficient the Spider is in the mechanics of rope-construction.
The net is as yet too delicate to resist the desperate struggles of the captured prey. On the other hand, the adults' net, which is formed of stouter threads, is adapted to last some time; and the Epeira gives it a more carefully-constructed framework, as we shall see elsewhere. A special thread, the foundation of the real net, is stretched across the area so capriciously circumscribed.
The Harlequin Pompilus does not disregard this counsel of prudence. The Epeira carries beneath her throat two sharp daggers, with a drop of poison at their points; the Calicurgus is lost if the Spider bites her. Nevertheless, her anaesthetizing demands perfect steadiness of the lancet. What is to be done in the face of this danger which might disconcert the most practised surgeon?
As a hunting-post and refectory, the Epeira has contrived a central space, free from glue. As for the glue itself, it is hardly possible to study its chemical properties, because the quantity is so slight. The microscope shows it trickling from the broken threads in the form of a transparent and more or less granular streak. The following experiment will tell us more about it.
They understand the fatal blow, either in the neck or under the chin, a thing which the Epeira does not understand; but, just because of this talent, they are specialists. Their province is the Domestic Bee. Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only on condition of specializing in it.
The Narbonne Lycosa, that other enthusiastic insect-huntress, would make us pay dearly if we attempted to take liberties with her. It is not uninteresting to watch the Epeira at dinner. I light upon one, the Banded Epeira, at the moment, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when she has captured a Locust.
It has a double office: it forms part of the Catherine-wheel supporting the lime-threads and it warns the Epeira by its vibrations. A special thread is here superfluous. The other snarers, on the contrary, who occupy a distant retreat by day, cannot do without a private wire that keeps them in permanent communication with the deserted web.
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