The Narbonne Lycosa: The Burrow- 

 Spider settled before long in a shaft of her 

 own construction. 



We are disappointed. Weeks pass and not 

 an effort is made, not one. Demoralised by 

 the absence of an ambush, the Lycosa hardly 

 vouchsafes a glance at the game which I 

 serve up. The Crickets pass within her 

 reach in vain; most often she scorns them. 

 She slowly wastes away with fasting and bore- 

 dom. At length, she dies. 



Take up your miner's trade again, poor 

 fool! Make yourself a home, since you know 

 how to, and life will be sweet to you for 

 many a long day yet: the weather is fine and 

 victuals plentiful. Dig, delve, go under- 

 ground, where safety lies. Like an idiot, you 

 refrain; and you perish. Why? 



Because the craft which you were wont to 

 ply is forgotten; because the days of patient 

 digging are past and your poor brain is un- 

 able to work back. To do a second time what 

 has been done already is beyond your wit. 

 For all your meditative air, you cannot solve 

 the problem of how to reconstruct that which 

 is vanished and gone. 



Let us now see what we can do with 

 younger Lycosae, who are at the burrowing- 



149 



