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My insect-cage is a spacious dome of wire-gauze resting on a bed of sand. Here I keep in reserve the captives of my hunting-expeditions. I feed them on honey, placed in little drops on spikes of lavender, on heads of thistle, or field eryngo, or globe-thistle, according to the season.
There is no resemblance in appearance between the proud candelabrum of the cotton-thistle, with its red tufts, and the humble stalk of the globe-thistle, with its sky-blue capitula; between the plentiful leaves of the mullein and the scanty foliage of the St. Barnaby's thistle; between the rich silvery fleece of the woolly sage and the short hairs of the everlasting.
I keep a watchful eye on the scraping of the mandibles and the work of the legs as they prepare the pellet; and I see nothing that differs from the operations of the insect when gleaning on the globe-thistle and the St. Barnaby's thistle. The plant from the Euphrates and the plant from Palestine are treated like those of the district.
A short length of reed is planted perpendicularly in a large earthenware pan filled with sand. This will be the Lycosa's burrow. In the middle I stick some heads of globe-thistle garnished with honey as a refectory for the Pompilus; a couple of Locusts, renewed as and when consumed, will sustain the Tarantula.
Most of the wadding is supplied by the Compositae, particularly the following: Centaurea solsticialis, or St. Barnaby's thistle; C. paniculata, or panicled centaury; Echinops ritro, or small globe-thistle; Onopordon illyricum, or Illyrian cotton-thistle; Helichrysum staechas, or wild everlasting; Filago germanica, or common cotton-rose.