THE BANDED EPEIRA 199 



With a piece of game for a bait, I hope to bring her 

 down from her lofty retreat. 



I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who 

 struggles desperately and sets the whole net a-shaking. 

 The other, up above, leaves her lurking-place amid the 

 cypress- foliage, strides swiftly down along her telegraph- 

 wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and at once 

 climbs home again by the same road, with her prize 

 dangling at her heels by a thread. The final sacrifice 

 will take place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary. 



A few days later I renew my experiment under the 

 same conditions, but, this time, I first cut the signaling- 

 thread. In vain I select a large Dragon-fly, a very rest- 

 less prisoner; in vain I exert my patience: the Spider 

 does not come down all day. Her telegraph being 

 broken, she receives no notice of what is happening 

 nine feet below. The entangled morsel remains where 

 it lies, not despised, but unknown. At nightfall the 

 Epeira leaves her cabin, passes over the ruins of her web, 

 finds the Dragon-fly and eats him on the spot, after 

 which the net is renewed. 



The Epeirae, who occupy a distant retreat by day, 

 cannot do without a private wire that keeps them in 

 permanent communication with the deserted web. All 

 of them have one, in point of fact, but only when age 

 comes, age prone to rest and to long slumbers. In their 

 youth, the Epeir?e, who are then very wide awake, know 

 nothing of the art of telegraphy. Besides, their web. a 

 short-lived work whereof hardly a trace remains on the 

 morrow, does not allow of this kind of industry. It is 



