xible as in life, with not a trace of a
wound. In short, we have here life without movement. From time to time
the tips of the tarsi quiver a little; and that is all. Accustomed of
old to these deceptive corpses, I can see in my mind's eye what has
happened: the Spider has been stung in the region of the thorax, no
doubt once only, in view of the concentration of her nervous system. I
place the victim in a box in which it retains all the pliancy and all
the freshness of life from the 2nd of August to the 20th of September,
that is to say, for seven weeks. These miracles are familiar to us (Cf.
"The Hunting Wasps": passim.--Translator's Note.); there is no need to
linger over them here.

The most important matter has escaped me. What I wanted, what I still
want to see is the Pompilus engaged in mortal combat with the Lycosa.
What a duel, in which the cunning of the one has to overcome the
terrible weapons of the other! Does the Wasp enter the burrow to
surprise the Tarantula at the bottom of her lair? Such temerity would
be fatal to her. 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? But the Lycosa is a stay-at-home animal; I
do not see her straying abroad during the summer. Later, in the autumn,
when the Pompili have disappeared, She wanders about; turning gipsy, she
takes the open air with her numerous family, which she carries on her
back. Apart from these maternal strolls, she does not appear to me to
leave her castle; and the Pompilus, I should think, has no great
chance of meeting her outside. The problem, we perceive, is becoming
complicated: the huntress cannot make her way into the burrow, where
she would risk sudden death; and the Spider's sedentary habits make an
encounter outside the burrow improbable. Here is a riddle which would
be interesting to decipher. Let us endeavour to do so by observing other
Spider-hunters; analogy will enable us to draw a conclusion.

I have often watched Pompili of every species on their
hunting-expeditions, but I have never surprised them entering the
Spider's lodging when the latter was at home. Whether this lodging be a
funnel plunging its neck into a hole in some wall,