ees' throats. They understand the
fatal blow, either in the neck or under the chin, a thing which the
Epeira does not understand; but, just because of this talent, they are
specialists. Their province is the Domestic Bee.

Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only on
condition of specializing in it. The Epeira, who, being omnivorous, is
obliged to generalize, abandons scientific methods and makes up for this
by distilling a poison capable of producing torpor and even death, no
matter what the point attacked.

Recognizing the large variety of game, we wonder how the Epeira manages
not to hesitate amid those many diverse forms, how, for instance, she
passes from the Locust to the Butterfly, so different in appearance. To
attribute to her as a guide an extensive zoological knowledge were wildly
in excess of what we may reasonably expect of her poor intelligence. The
thing moves, therefore it is worth catching: this formula seems to sum up
the Spider's wisdom.

CHAPTER XIV: THE GARDEN SPIDERS: THE QUESTION OF PROPERTY

A dog has found a bone. He lies in the shade, holding it between his
paws, and studies it fondly. It is his sacred property, his chattel. An
Epeira has woven her web. Here again is property; and owning a better
title than the other. Favoured by chance and assisted by his scent, the
Dog has merely had a find; he has neither worked nor paid for it. The
Spider is more than a casual owner, she has created what is hers. Its
substance issued from her body, its structure from her brain. If ever
property was sacrosanct, hers is.

Far higher stands the work of the weaver of ideas, who tissues a book,
that other Spider's web, and out of his thought makes something that
shall instruct or thrill us. To protect our 'bone,' we have the police,
invented for the express purpose. To protect the book, we have none but
farcical means. Place a few bricks one atop the other; join them with
mortar; and the law will defend your wall. Build up in writing an
edifice of your thoughts; and it will be open to any one, without serious
impediment, to abstract stones from it, even to take the whole, if it
suit him. A rabbit-hutch is property; the work of the mind is not. If
the animal has eccentric views as regards the possessions of others, we
have ours as well.

'Might always has the best of the argument,' said La Fontaine, to the
great scandal of the peace-lovers. The exigencies of