xii The Life of the Spider 



the most fabulous banquet whereof abdominal 

 imagination ever evoked the absolute beatitudes. 

 For two whole months, they remain cloistered ; 

 and, with their paunches proportionately hollow- 

 ing out the inexhaustible sphere, definite arche- 

 types and sovereign symbols of the pleasures 

 of the table and the gaiety of the belly, they eat 

 without stopping, without interrupting them- 

 selves for a second, day or night. And, while 

 they gorge, steadily, with a movement percep- 

 tible and constant as that of a clock, at the rate 

 of three millimetres a minute, an endless, 

 unbroken ribbon unwinds and stretches itself 

 behind them, fixing the memory and recording 

 the hours, days and weeks of the prodigious 

 feast. 



4 

 After the Dung-beetle, that dolt of the com- 

 pany, let us greet, also in the order of the 

 Coleoptera, the model household of the Mino- 

 taurus typhcBus, which is pretty well-known 

 and extremely gentle, in spite of its dreadful 

 name. The female digs a huge burrow which 

 is often more than a yard and a half deep and 



