156 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



ball, fondles it with her palpi, fastens it to her spinnerets 

 and thenceforth drags it after her as though she were 

 dragging her own bag. 



Let us give another the choice between the imitation 

 and the real. The rightful pill and the cork ball are 

 placed together on the floor of the jar. Will the Spider 

 be able to know the one that belongs to her? The fool 

 is incapable of doing so. She makes a wild rush and 

 seizes haphazard at one time her property, at another my 

 sham product. Whatever is first touched becomes a 

 good capture and is forthwith hung up. 



If I increase the number of cork balls, if I put in four 

 or five of them, with the real pill among them, it is 

 seldom that the Lycosa recovers her own property. At- 

 tempts at inquiry, attempts at selection there are none. 

 Whatever she snaps up at random she sticks to, be it 

 good or bad. As there are more of the sham pills of 

 cork, these are the most often seized by the Spider. 



This obtuseness baffles me. Can the animal be de- 

 ceived by the soft contact of the cork? I replace the 

 cork balls by pellets of cotton or paper, kept in their 

 round shape with a few bands of thread. Both are very 

 readily accepted instead of the real bag that has been 

 removed. 



Can the illusion be due to the coloring, which is light 

 in the cork and not unlike the tint of the silk globe when 

 soiled with a little earth, while it is white in the paper 

 and the cotton, when it is identical with that of the origi- 

 nal pill? I give the Lycosa, in exchange for her work, 

 a pellet of silk thread, chosen of a fine red, the brightest 



