an awning stretched
amid the stubble, a tent modelled upon the Arab's, a sheath formed of a
few leaves bound together, or a net with a guard-room attached, whenever
the owner is indoors the suspicious Pompilus holds aloof. When the
dwelling is vacant, it is another matter: the Wasp moves with arrogant
ease over those webs, springes and cables in which so many other insects
would remain ensnared. The silken threads do not seem to have any hold
upon her. What is she doing, exploring those empty webs? She is watching
to see what is happening on the adjacent webs where the Spider is
ambushed. The Pompilus therefore feels an insuperable reluctance to make
straight for the Spider when the latter is at home in the midst of
her snares. And she is right, a hundred times over. If the Tarantula
understands the practice of the dagger-thrust in the neck, which is
immediately fatal, the other cannot be unacquainted with it. Woe then to
the imprudent Wasp who presents herself upon the threshold of a Spider
of approximately equal strength!

Of the various instances which I have collected of this cautious reserve
on the Spider-huntress' part I will confine myself to the following,
which will be sufficient to prove my point. By joining, with silken
strands, the three folioles which form the leaf of Virgil's cytisus, a
Spider has built herself a green arbour, a horizontal sheath, open at
either end. A questing Pompilus comes upon the scene, finds the game to
her liking and pops in her head at the entrance of the cell. The Spider
immediately retreats to the other end. The huntress goes round the
Spider's dwelling and reappears at the other door. Again the Spider
retreats, returning to the first entrance. The Wasp also returns to it,
but always by the outside. Scarcely has she done so, when the Spider
rushes for the opposite opening; and so on for fully a quarter of an
hour, both of them coming and going from one end of the cylinder to the
other, the Spider inside and the Pompilus outside.

The quarry was a valuable one, it seems, since the Wasp persisted for a
long time in her attempts, which were invariably defeated; however, the
huntress had to abandon them, baffled by this perpetual running to and
fro. The Pompilus made off; and the Spider, once more on the watch,
patiently awaited the heedless Midges. What should the Wasp have done
to capture this much-coveted game? She should have entered the verdant
cylinder, the Spider's dwelling,