ermittent mouthfuls, with the mandibles moving
backwards and forwards. It is a sort of continuous kiss.

I visit my Epeira at intervals. The mouth does not change its place. I
visit her for the last time at nine o'clock in the evening. Matters
stand exactly as they did: after six hours' consumption, the mouth is
still sucking at the lower end of the right haunch. The fluid contents
of the victim are transferred to the ogress' belly, I know not how.

Next morning, the Spider is still at table. I take away her dish. Naught
remains of the Locust but his skin, hardly altered in shape, but utterly
drained and perforated in several places. The method, therefore, was
changed during the night. To extract the non-fluent residue, the viscera
and muscles, the stiff cuticle had to be tapped here, there and
elsewhere, after which the tattered husk, placed bodily in the press of
the mandibles, would have been chewed, rechewed and finally reduced to a
pill, which the sated Spider throws up. This would have been the end of
the victim, had I not taken it away before the time.

Whether she wound or kill, the Epeira bites her captive somewhere or
other, no matter where. This is an excellent method on her part, because
of the variety of the game that comes her way. I see her accepting with
equal readiness whatever chance may send her: Butterflies and
Dragon-flies, Flies and Wasps, small Dung-beetles and Locusts. If I
offer her a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia--the equivalent of the common
Cockchafer--and other dishes probably unknown to her race, she accepts
all and any, large and small, thin-skinned and horny-skinned, that which
goes afoot and that which takes winged flight. She is omnivorous, she
preys on everything, down to her own kind, should the occasion offer.

Had she to operate according to individual structure, she would need an
anatomical dictionary; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar with
generalities: its knowledge is always confined to limited points. The
Cerceres know their Weevils and their Buprestis-beetles absolutely; the
Sphex their Grasshoppers, their Crickets and their Locusts; the Scoliae
{34} their Cetonia- and Oryctes-grubs. Even so the other paralyzers.
Each has her own victim and knows nothing of any of the others.

The same exclusive tastes prevail among the slayers. Let us remember, in
this connection, _Philanthus apivorus_ {35} and, especially, the
Thomisus, the comely Spider who cuts B