CHAPTER XII 



THE RINGED CALICURGUS 



The non-cuirassed victims, pervious to the sting over 

 almost the whole of their body, such as Common Cater- 

 pillars and "Land-surveying" Caterpillars, Cetonia and 

 Anoxia grubs, whose sole means of defence, apart from 

 their mandibles, consists in rollings and contortions, sum- 

 moned another prey to my glass bell : the Spider, almost 

 as ill-protected, but armed with formidable poison-fangs. 

 How, more particularly, does the Ringed Calicurgus, or 

 Pompilus, set to work to deal with the black-bellied 

 Tarantula, the terrible Lycosa Narbonnensis, who slays 

 mole and sparrow with a bite and imperils the life of 

 man ? How does the bold Pompilus overcome an adver- 

 sary stronger than herself, better-endowed in virulence 

 of poison and capable of making a meal of her assailant ? 

 Among the hunting insects, none faces such dispro- 

 portionate contests, in which appearances seem to 

 point to the aggressor as the prey and to the prey as 

 the aggressor. 



The problem deserved patient study. True, judging 

 by the Spider's structure, I anticipated a single stab in 

 the centre of the thorax ; but this did not explain the vic- 

 tory of the Hymenopteron, emerging safe and sound from 

 her encounter with a quarry of that description. The 

 matter must be looked into. The chief difficulty is the 



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