THE HUNTER’S ENEMIES. 217 
whether, like a good artisan, it calculates that a long and obstinate 
struggle will cost it more time than will the 
manufacture of another web. Therefore, with- 
out yielding to the shghtest susceptibility of 
self-love, it allows the ant to strut about, 
and takes up its post a little further off. 
Every animal lives by depredation. Nature 
is ever devouring itself; but the prey is not 
always sought and merited by a patient in- 
dustry deserving of respect. No being, how- 
ever, is so much the plaything of fate as the 
spider. Like every good workman, it has a 
twofold value: in its work and its person. 
An infinity of insects—the murderous carabus, 
or the Jlibellula, an elegant and_ splendid 
assassin—have only their bodies and_ their 
weapons, and spend their lives joyously in 
killing. Others possess secure and easily de- 
fended asylums, where they have cause to fear 
few dangers. The field-spider has neither the 
one nor the other advantage. It is in the posi- 
tion of the respectable operative, who, through 
his small and ill-guaranteed fortune, attracts 
or tempts cupidity or insolence. The lizard 
from below, the squirrel from above, hunt 
the feeble hunter. The inert frog darts at it 
the viscous tongue, which glues it and renders 
it immovable. It is the felicity of the 
swallow, in her graceful circle, to carry off, 
without injuring, the spider and his web; and 
all birds look upon it as a great dainty or an 
excellent medicine. The nightingale, faith- 
ful, like all great singers, to a certain hygiene, prescribes for herself, as 
ah occasional purgative, a spider. 
