The Life of the Spider 



his terrible excitement in the web. It looks as 

 though it would soon pass. 



I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce- 

 leaf to console them for their trials; but they 

 will not be comforted. A day elapses, fol- 

 lowed by a second. Not one of them touches 

 the leaf of salad; their appetite has disap- 

 peared. Their movements become more 

 uncertain, as though hampered by irresistible 

 torpor. On the second day, they are dead, 

 every one irrecoverably dead. 



The Epeira, therefore, does not inconti- 

 nently kill her prey with her delicate bite; she 

 poisons it so as to produce a gradual weak- 

 ness, which gives the blood-sucker ample time 

 to drain her victim, without the least risk, 

 before the rigor mortis stops the flow of 

 moisture. 



The meal lasts quite twenty-four hours, if 

 the joint be large; and to the very end the 

 butchered insect retains a remnant of life, a 

 favourable condition for the exhausting of the 

 juices. Once again, we see a skilful method 

 of slaughter, very different from the tactics in 

 use among the expert paralyzers or slayers. 

 Here there is no display of anatomical science. 

 Unacquainted with the patient's structure, the 



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