The Life of the Spider | Page 6

evening and the night were his time for taking his walks abroad. I often
heard him scratching the paper of the bag. These habits confirm the
opinion, which I have already expressed elsewhere, that most Spiders
have the faculty of seeing by day and night, like cats.
'On the 28th of June, my Tarantula cast his skin. It was his last moult
and did not perceptibly alter either the colour of his attire or the
dimensions of his body. On the 14th of July, I had to leave Valencia;
and I stayed away until the 23rd. During this time, the Tarantula fasted;
I found him looking quite well on my return. On the 20th of August, I
again left for a nine days' absence, which my prisoner bore without
food and without detriment to his health. On the 1st of October, I once
more deserted the Tarantula, leaving him without provisions. On the
21st, I was fifty miles from Valencia and, as I intended to remain there,
I sent a servant to fetch him. I was sorry to learn that he was not found
in the jar, and I never heard what became of him.
'I will end my observations on the Tarantulae with a short description
of a curious fight between those animals. One day, when I had had a
successful hunt after these Lycosae, I picked out two full-grown and
very powerful males and brought them together in a wide jar, in order

to enjoy the sight of a combat to the death. After walking round the
arena several times, to try and avoid each other, they were not slow in
placing themselves in a warlike attitude, as though at a given signal. I
saw them, to my surprise, take their distances and sit up solemnly on
their hind-legs, so as mutually to present the shield of their chests to
each other. After watching them face to face like that for two minutes,
during which they had doubtless provoked each other by glances that
escaped my own, I saw them fling themselves upon each other at the
same time, twisting their legs round each other and obstinately
struggling to bite each other with the fangs of the mandibles. Whether
from fatigue or from convention, the combat was suspended; there was
a few seconds' truce; and each athlete moved away and resumed his
threatening posture. This circumstance reminded me that, in the strange
fights between cats, there are also suspensions of hostilities. But the
contest was soon renewed between my two Tarantulae with increased
fierceness. One of them, after holding victory in the balance for a while,
was at last thrown and received a mortal wound in the head. He became
the prey of the conqueror, who tore open his skull and devoured it.
After this curious duel, I kept the victorious Tarantula alive for several
weeks.'
My district does not boast the ordinary Tarantula, the Spider whose
habits have been described above by the Wizard of the Landes; but it
possesses an equivalent in the shape of the Black-bellied Tarantula, or
Narbonne Lycosa, half the size of the other, clad in black velvet on the
lower surface, especially under the belly, with brown chevrons on the
abdomen and grey and white rings around the legs. Her favourite home
is the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme. In my
harmas {6} laboratory there are quite twenty of this Spider's burrows.
Rarely do I pass by one of these haunts without giving a glance down
the pit where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four
telescopes, of the hermit. The four others, which are much smaller, are
not visible at that depth.
Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from
my house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, today a
dreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from

stone to stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the land. Because wine
paid handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant the vine. Then came
the Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and the once green table-land
is now no more than a desolate stretch where a few tufts of hardy
grasses sprout among the pebbles. This wasteland is the Lycosa's
paradise: in an hour's time, if need were, I should discover a hundred
burrows within a limited range.
These dwellings are pits about a foot deep, perpendicular at first and
then bent elbow-wise. The average diameter is an inch. On the edge of
the hole stands a kerb, formed of straw, bits and scraps of all sorts and
even small pebbles, the size of a hazel-nut. The whole is kept in place
and cemented with silk. Often, the Spider confines herself to drawing
together the dry blades of the