24 The Life of a Spider 



legs. Scarce a few quivers of those legs tell 

 me that it is a quite recent corpse. The Bumble- 

 bee's death is instantaneous. Each time that 

 I take a fresh victim from the terrible slaughter- 

 house, my surprise is renewed at the sight of 

 its sudden immobility. 



Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly 

 the same strength ; for I choose my Bumble- 

 bees from among the largest {Bombus hortorum 

 and B. terrestris). Their weapons are almost 

 equal : the Bee's dart can bear comparison 

 with the Spider's fangs ; the sting of the first 

 seems to me as formidable as the bite of the 

 second. How comes it that the Tarantula 

 always has the upper hand and this moreover 

 in a very short conflict, whence she emerges 

 unscathed ? There must certainly be some 

 cunning strategy on her part. Subtle though 

 her poison may be, I cannot believe that its 

 mere injection, at any point whatever of the 

 victim, is enough to produce so prompt a 

 catastrophe. The ill-famed rattle-snake does not 

 kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for 

 which the Tarantula does not require a second. 

 We must, therefore, look for an explanation of 



