The Pelopaeus' Victuals 



as indicating a special predilection of the 

 Pelopaeus for this kind of game. In her 

 hunting-trips the Wasp does not go far 

 from her home; she vists the old walls near 

 by, the hedges, the little gardens all around 

 and captures whatever offers. Now in 

 these conditions the Cross Spider happens, 

 at the nesting-period, to be the commonest. 

 Every reed-fenced garden-patch in front of 

 the rough cottage beloved by the potter, 

 every hawthorn-hedge surrounding a cab- 

 bage-plot shows me the Spider with the 

 pontifical cross weaving her net or waiting 

 for her prey in the centre of her web. If 

 I need a Spider for my studies, I am certain 

 of finding the Diadem Epeira within a few 

 steps of my house. That much keener in- 

 vestigator, the Pelopaeus, must easily effect 

 this kind of capture; and this, it seems to 

 me, is the reason why that particular morsel 

 predominates in the provision-store. 



If the Epeira, the habitual foundation of 

 the meal, happen to be lacking, any other 

 Spider is regarded as adequate, even when 

 she belongs to a very different group. We 

 have here the wise eclecticism of 'the Cra- 

 bro-wasps ^ and Bembeces, who welcome any 



1 A family of Digger Wasps of whom the larger species 

 burrow in the ground and the smaller in the pith of 

 plants or in rotten wood. — Translator's Note. 

 91 



