THE BANDED EPEIRA 189 



I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce-leaf to 

 console them for their trials; but they will not be com- 

 forted. A day elapses, followed by a second. Not one 

 of them touches the leaf of salad; their appetite has 

 disappeared. 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 incontinently kill her 

 prey with her delicate bite; she poisons it so as to 

 produce a gradual weakness, 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 favorable 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 Spider stabs at random. The 

 virulence of the poison does the rest. 



There are, however, some very few cases in which the 

 bite is speedily mortal. My notes speak of an Angular 

 Epeira grappling with the largest Dragon-fly in my 

 district (^shna grandis, Lin.). I myself had entangled 

 in the web this head of big game, which is not often 

 captured by the Epeirse. The net shakes violently, seems 

 bound to break its moorings. The Spider rushes from 

 her leafy villa, runs boldly up to the giantess, flings a 

 single bundle of ropes at her and, without further pre- 



