Grasshoppers.--Translator's Note.);
how is it that she, with her delicate organism, does not! The Spider's
daggers, therefore, make no more than an idle feint; their points do not
enter the flesh of the tight-clasped Wasp. If the strokes were real, I
should see bleeding wounds, I should see the fangs close for a moment on
the part seized; and with all my attention I cannot detect anything of
the kind. Then are the fangs powerless to pierce the Wasp's integuments?
Not so. I have seen them penetrate, with a crackling of broken armour,
the corselet of the Acridians, which offers a far greater resistance.
Once again, whence comes this strange immunity of the Calicurgus held
between the legs and assailed by the daggers of the Tarantula? I do not
know. Though in mortal peril from the enemy confronting her, the Lycosa
threatens her with her fangs and cannot decide to bite, owing to a
repugnance which I do not undertake to explain.

Obtaining nothing more than alarums and excursions of no great
seriousness, I think of modifying the gladiatorial arena and
approximating it to natural conditions. The soil is very imperfectly
represented by my work-table; and the Spider has not her fortress, her
burrow, which plays a part of some importance both in attack and in
defence. 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. These comfortable quarters,
exposed to the sun, receive the two captives under a wire-gauze dome,
which provides adequate ventilation for a prolonged residence.

My artifices come to nothing; the session closes without result. A
day passes, two days, three; still nothing happens. The Pompilus is
assiduous in her visits to the honeyed flower-clusters; when she has
eaten her fill, she clambers up the dome and makes interminable circuits
of the netting; the Tarantula quietly munches her Locust. If the other
passes within reach, she swiftly raises herself and waves her off. The
artificial burrow, the reed-stump, fulfills its purpose excellently. The
Lycosa and the Pompilus resort to it in turns, but without quarrelling.
And that is all. The drama whose prologue was so full of promise appears
to be indefinitely postponed.

I have a last resource, on which I base