The Black-Bellied Tarantula 



Sphex munching the brain of the Ephip- 

 pigera, with the object of inducing a pass- 

 ing torpor. But they simply squeeze the 

 brain, and do even this with a wise dis- 

 cretion; they are careful not to drive their 

 sting into this fundamental centre of life; 

 not one of them ever thinks of doing so, 

 for the result would be a corpse which the 

 larva would despise. The Spider, on the 

 other hand, inserts her double dirk there and 

 there alone; any elsewhere it would inflict a 

 wound likely to increase resistance through 

 irritation. She wants a venison for consump- 

 tion without delay and brutally thrusts her 

 fangs into the spot which the others so con- 

 scientiously respect. 



If the instinct of these scientific murderers 

 is not, in both cases, an inborn predisposi- 

 tion, inseparable from the animal, but an 

 acquired habit, then I rack my brain in vain 

 to understand how that habit can have been 

 acquired. Shroud these facts in theoretic 

 mists as much as you will, you shall never 

 succeed in veiling the glaring evidence which 

 they afford of a pre-established order of 

 things. 



77 



