The Pelopaeus' Victuals 



does she not profit by this plenty? The 

 dish is not to her liking; and it would be 

 very difficult to tell the reason why. The 

 fact remains that, in ail my stock-taking of 

 victuals, I have never found the House 

 Spider among the provisions, although the 

 species, if captured young, would seem to 

 fulfil the required conditions. This dis- 

 dain is a pity both for our sake and for the 

 Pelopaeus'; for ours, in the first place, be- 

 cause we should otherwise possess, inside 

 our dwellings, an inspector of ceilings whose 

 duty it would be to exterminate the spin- 

 ners of cobwebs that cause the housewives 

 such trouble; next, for the sake of the 

 Pelopaeus, who, once inscribed on the hal- 

 lowed roll of useful insects, would enjoy an 

 established reputation and receive a friendly 

 welcome in the farm-house, instead of be- 

 ing driven out when too lavish with her 

 mud. 



The Spider, armed with poison-fangs, is 

 a dangerous quarry to tackle ; when of fair 

 size, she demands of her adversary an au- 

 dacity and above all a tactical skill which 

 the Pelopaeus, it seems to me, does not fully 

 possess. Moreover, the small diameter of 

 the cells would not admit a bulky prey, such 

 as the Tarantula hunted by the Ringed 



93 



