ould
think that, when one of them found meshes too wide for her under her
feet, the other meshes too narrow, they would be frightened by this
sudden change and decamp in terror. Not at all. Without a sign of
perturbation, they remain, plant themselves in the centre and await the
coming of the game, as though nothing extraordinary had happened. They
do more than this. Days pass and, as long as the unfamiliar web is not
wrecked to the extent of being unserviceable, they make no attempt to
weave another in their own style. The Spider, therefore, is incapable of
recognizing her web. She takes another's work for hers, even when it is
produced by a stranger to her race.

We now come to the tragic side of this confusion. Wishing to have
subjects for study within my daily reach and to save myself the trouble
of casual excursions, I collect different Epeirae whom I find in the
course of my walks and establish them on the shrubs in my enclosure. In
this way, a rosemary-hedge, sheltered from the wind and facing the sun,
is turned into a well-stocked menagerie. I take the Spiders from the
paper bags wherein I had put them separately, to carry them, and place
them on the leaves, with no further precaution. It is for them to make
themselves at home. As a rule, they do not budge all day from the place
where I put them: they wait for nightfall before seeking a suitable site
whereon to weave a net.

Some among them show less patience. A little while ago, they possessed a
web, between the reeds of a brook or in the holm-oak copses; and now they
have none. They go off in search, to recover their property or seize on
some one else's: it is all the same to them. I come upon a Banded
Epeira, newly imported, making for the web of a Silky Epeira who has been
my guest for some days now. The owner is at her post, in the centre of
the net. She awaits the stranger with seeming impassiveness. Then
suddenly they grip each other; and a desperate fight begins. The Silky
Epeira is worsted. The other swathes her in bonds, drags her to the non-
limy central floor and, in the calmest fashion, eats her. The dead
Spider is munched for twenty-four hours and drained to the last drop,
when the corpse, a wretched, crumpled ball, is at last flung aside. The
web so foully conquered becomes the property of the stranger, who uses
it, if it have not suffered too much in the contest.

There is here a shadow of an excuse. The two Spiders were o