THE RINGED CALICURGUS 163 



table, the Lycosa's reluctance to drive her fangs into her 

 adversary. When the two are face to face at the bottom 

 of the lair, that surely would be the time of times to 

 have a word with the enemy. The Tarantula is at home ; 

 every nook and corner of the bastion is familiar to her. 

 The intruder is constrained in her movements ; she does 

 not know her way about. Quick, a bite, my poor Lycosa, 

 and your persecutor's done for ! You refrain, I know 

 not why ; and your reluctance is the rash one's salvation. 

 The silly sheep does not reply to the butcher's knife 

 with a butt from his horned forehead. Can you be the 

 sheep of the Calicurgus ? 



My two subjects are once more installed in my study, 

 under their wire domes, with the bed of sand, the reed- 

 stump burrow and renewed honey. They here find their 

 first Lycosae, feeding on crickets. The cohabitation ex- 

 tends over three weeks, without other incidents than 

 scrimmages and threatenings, which become rarer from 

 day to day. No serious hostility on either side. At last, 

 the Calicurgi die : their day is past. A pitiful ending to 

 a spirited start. 



Shall I abandon the problem ? Oh, no ! It is not 

 the first that has been unable to deter me from an 

 eagerly-cherished plan. Fortune favours the persevering. 

 She proves this by offering me, in September, a fortnight 

 after the death of my Tarantula-hunters, a different Cali- 

 curgus, captured for the first time. It is Calicurgus 

 Curra, clad in the same showy style as her predecessors 

 and almost of the same size. 



I know nothing about the new-comer : I wonder what 

 she would like. A spider, that is certain : but which ? 

 A huntress of her build calls for big game : perhaps the 

 Silky Epeira, perhaps the Banded Epeira, the two fattest 

 Arachnids in the country, next to the Tarantula. The 



