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Updated: May 21, 2025
The first tuft of grass no longer counts; the second alone interests her. And then the search in the neighbourhood begins again. On finding her game on the bare spot where I myself have placed it, the Pompilus quickly deposits the Spider on a third tuft of grass; and the experiment is renewed.
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.
This done, the rest is nothing. The Tarantula-huntress must behave in the same manner. Enlightened by her kinswoman, Pompilus apicalis, my mind pictures her wandering stealthily around the Lycosa's rampart. The Lycosa hurries up from the bottom of her burrow, believing that a victim is approaching; she ascends her vertical tube, spreading her fore-legs outside, ready to leap.
Yes, this is the bill of fare which the proud Pompilus provides for her larva. This spectacle, one of the most striking with which the Hunting Wasps have ever provided me, has as yet been offered to my eyes but once; and that was close beside my rural home, in the famous laboratory of the harmas. Cf. "The Life of the Fly," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 1.
For a little while longer, a minute at most, the Epeira convulsively moves her legs. So long as these throes continue, the Pompilus does not release her prey. She seems to watch the progress of the paralysis. With the tips of her mandibles she explores the Spider's mouth several times over, as though to ascertain if the poison-fangs are really innocuous.
After this there is no difficulty in catching her, thanks to the utter bewilderment of the evicted animal. Two contrasting points impress me in the facts which I have just set forth: the shrewdness of the Pompilus and the folly of the Spider.
I judged it to be an easy matter; the Pompilus thought it highly dangerous. To-day I am of her opinion: if she had entered the leafy tube, the mistress of the house would have operated on her neck and the huntress would have become the quarry.
Where the big Bumble-bee dies an instant death, the audacious visitor would perish the moment she entered. Is not the other there, facing her, ready to snap at the back of her head, inflicting a wound which would result in sudden death? No, the Pompilus does not enter the Spider's parlour, that is obvious. Does she surprise the Spider outside her fortress?
The Pompilus will pounce upon one of the legs spread outside the burrow for defence and attack; and the besieged Spider will perish, betrayed by her own boldness. This posture is excellent when waiting for prey. But the Wasp is not a quarry; she is an enemy and one of the most dreaded of enemies. The Spider knows this.
The Calicurgus pays no attention to threats: under her harlequin's coat, she is violent in attack and quick on her legs. There is a rapid exchange of fisticuffs; and the Epeira lies overturned on her back. The Pompilus is on top of her, belly to belly, head to head; with her legs she masters the Spider's legs; with her mandibles she grips the cephalothorax.
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