The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow 



nuptial badge, the black-velvet bib. The 

 Spiders meet at night, by the soft moon- 

 light: they romp together, they eat the be- 

 loved shortly after the wedding; by day, 

 they scour the country, they track the game 

 on the short-pile, grassy carpet, they take 

 their fill of the joys of the sun. That is much 

 better than solitary meditation at the bottom 

 of a well. And so it is not rare to see young 

 mothers dragging their bag of eggs, or even 

 already carrying their family, and as yet with- 

 out a home. 



In October, it is time to settle down. We 

 then, in fact, find two sorts of burrows, 

 which differ in diameter. The larger, bottle- 

 neck burrows belong to the old matrons, who 

 have owned their house for two years at 

 least. The smaller, of the width of a thick 

 lead-pencil, contain the young mothers, born 

 that year. By dint of long and leisurely 

 alterations, the novice's earths will increase in 

 depth as well as in diameter and become 

 roomy abodes, similar to those of the grand- 

 mothers. In both, we find the owner and her 

 family, the latter sometimes already hatched 

 and sometimes still enclosed in the satin 

 wallet. 



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