The Life of the Spider | Page 8

said opening. The
powerful Bee at first flutters and hums about her glass prison; then,
perceiving a burrow similar to that of her family, she enters it without
much hesitation. She is extremely ill-advised: while she goes down, the
Spider comes up; and the meeting takes place in the perpendicular
passage. For a few moments, the ear perceives a sort of death-song: it is
the humming of the Bumble-bee, protesting against the reception given
her. This is followed by a long silence. Then I remove the bottle and
dip a long-jawed forceps into the pit. I withdraw the Bumble- bee,
motionless, dead, with hanging proboscis. A terrible tragedy must have
happened. The Spider follows, refusing to let go so rich a booty. Game
and huntress are brought to the orifice. Sometimes, mistrustful, the
Lycosa goes in again; but we have only to leave the Bumble-bee on the
threshold of the door, or even a few inches away, to see her reappear,
issue from her fortress and daringly recapture her prey. This is the
moment: the house is closed with the finger, or a pebble and, as Baglivi
says, 'captatur tamen ista a rustico insidiatore,' to which I will add,
'adjuvante Bombo.' {7}
The object of these hunting methods was not exactly to obtain
Tarantulae; I had not the least wish to rear the Spider in a bottle. I was
interested in a different matter. Here, thought I, is an ardent huntress,
living solely by her trade. She does not prepare preserved foodstuffs for
her offspring; {8} she herself feeds on the prey which she catches. She
is not a 'paralyzer,' {9} who cleverly spares her quarry so as to leave it
a glimmer of life and keep it fresh for weeks at a time; she is a killer,

who makes a meal off her capture on the spot. With her, there is no
methodical vivisection, which destroys movement without entirely
destroying life, but absolute death, as sudden as possible, which
protects the assailant from the counter-attacks of the assailed.
Her game, moreover, is essentially bulky and not always of the most
peaceful character. This Diana, ambushed in her tower, needs a prey
worthy of her prowess. The big Grass-hopper, with the powerful jaws;
the irascible Wasp; the Bee, the Bumble-bee and other wearers of
poisoned daggers must fall into the ambuscade from time to time. The
duel is nearly equal in point of weapons. To the venomous fangs of the
Lycosa the Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto. Which of the two
bandits shall have the best of it? The struggle is a hand-to-hand one.
The Tarantula has no secondary means of defence, no cord to bind her
victim, no trap to subdue her. When the Epeira, or Garden Spider, sees
an insect entangled in her great upright web, she hastens up and covers
the captive with corded meshes and silk ribbons by the armful, making
all resistance impossible. When the prey is solidly bound, a prick is
carefully administered with the poison-fangs; then the Spider retires,
waiting for the death-throes to calm down, after which the huntress
comes back to the game. In these conditions, there is no serious danger.
In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier. She has naught to serve her
but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap upon the
formidable prey, to master it by her dexterity, to annihilate it, in a
measure, by her swift-slaying talent.
Annihilate is the word: the Bumble-bees whom I draw from the fatal
hole are a sufficient proof. As soon as that shrill buzzing, which I called
the death-song, ceases, in vain I hasten to insert my forceps: I always
bring out the insect dead, with slack proboscis and limp legs. Scarce a
few quivers of those legs tell me that it is a quite recent corpse. The
Bumble-bee's death is instantaneous. Each time that I take a fresh
victim from the terrible slaughter- house, my surprise is renewed at the
sight of its sudden immobility.
Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly the same strength; for I
choose my Bumble-bees from among the largest (Bombus hortorum

and B. terrestris). Their weapons are almost equal: the Bee's dart can
bear comparison with the Spider's fangs; the sting of the first seems to
me as formidable as the bite of the second. How comes it that the
Tarantula always has the upper hand and this moreover in a very short
conflict, whence she emerges unscathed? There must certainly be some
cunning strategy on her part. Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot
believe that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is
enough to produce so prompt a catastrophe. The ill-famed rattle-snake
does not kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for which