THE SPIDERS 155 



and hung on to the spinneret. Her own or another's : 

 it is all one to the Spider, who walks away proudly with 

 the alien wallet. This was to be expected, in view of 

 the similarity of the pills exchanged. 



A test of another kind, with a second subject, renders 

 the mistake more striking. I substitute, in the place of 

 the lawful bag which I have removed, the work of the 

 Silky Epeira. The color and softness of the material 

 are the same in both cases ; but the shape is quite diflfer- 

 ent. The stolen object is a globe; the object presented 

 in exchange is an elliptical conoid studded with angular 

 projections along the edge of the base. The Spider 

 takes no account of this dissimilarity. She promptly 

 glues the queer bag to her spinnerets and is as pleased 

 as though she were in possession of her real pill. My 

 experimental villainies have no other consequence beyond 

 an ephemeral carting. When hatching-time arrives, 

 early in the- case of Lycosa, late in that of the Epeira, the 

 gulled Spider abandons the strange bag and pays it no 

 further attention. 



Let us penetrate yet deeper into the wallet-bearer's 

 stupidity. After depriving the Lycosa of her eggs, I 

 throw her a ball of cork, roughly polished with a file 

 and of the same size as the stolen pill. She accepts the 

 corky substance, so different from the silk purse, without 

 the least demur. One would have thought that she 

 would recognize her mistake with those eight eyes of 

 hers, which gleam like precious stones. The silly crea- 

 ture pays no attention. Lovingly she embraces the cork 



