e other is watching her from her lofty loop-hole.

This is probably not the only cause of her fright. When my straw does
induce her to take a few steps, I see her lift her legs with some
difficulty. She tugs a bit, drags her tarsi till she almost breaks the
supporting threads. It is not the progress of an agile rope-walker; it
is the hesitating gait of entangled feet. Perhaps the lime-threads are
stickier than in her own web. The glue is of a different quality; and
her sandals are not greased to the extent which the new degree of
adhesiveness would demand.

Anyhow, things remain as they are for long hours on end: the Banded
Epeira motionless on the edge of the web; the other lurking in her hut;
both apparently most uneasy. At sunset, the lover of darkness plucks up
courage. She descends from her green tent and, without troubling about
the stranger, goes straight to the centre of the web, where the telegraph-
wire brings her. Panic-stricken at this apparition, the Banded Epeira
releases herself with a jerk and disappears in the rosemary-thicket.

The experiment, though repeatedly renewed with different subjects, gave
me no other results. Distrustful of a web dissimilar to her own, if not
in structure, at least in stickiness, the bold Banded Epeira shows the
white feather and refuses to attack the Cross Spider. The latter, on her
side, either does not budge from her day shelter in the foliage, or else
rushes back to it, after taking a hurried glance at the stranger. She
here awaits the coming of the night. Under favour of the darkness, which
gives her fresh courage and activity, she reappears upon the scene and
puts the intruder to flight by her mere presence, aided, if need be, by a
cuff or two. Injured right is the victor.

Morality is satisfied; but let us not congratulate the Spider therefore.
If the invader respects the invaded, it is because very serious reasons
impel her. First, she would have to contend with an adversary ensconced
in a stronghold whose ambushes are unknown to the assailant. Secondly,
the web, if conquered, would be inconvenient to use, because of the lime-
threads, possessing a different degree of stickiness from those which she
knows so well. To risk one's skin for a thing of doubtful value were
twice foolish. The Spider knows this and forbears.

But let the Banded Epeira, deprived of her web, come upon that of one of
her kind or of the Silky Epeira, who works her gummy twine