142 The Life of the Spider 



repeated daily, whenever I have the leisure to 

 devote to it. After a frugal winter, the time 

 has come for plentiful repasts. 



This appetite tells us that the animal is not 

 at the point of death ; one does not feast in 

 this way with a played-out stomach. My 

 boarders are entering in full vigour upon their 

 fourth year. In the winter, in the fields, I used 

 to find large mothers, carting their young, and 

 others not much more than half their size. 

 The whole series, therefore, represented three 

 generations. And now, in my earthenware 

 pans, after the departure of the family, the old 

 matrons still carry on and continue as strong 

 as ever. Every outward appearance tells us 

 that, after becoming great-grandmothers, they 

 still keep themselves fit for propagating their 

 species. 



The facts correspond with these anticipations. 

 When September returns, my captives are 

 dragging a bag as bulky as that of last year. 

 For a long time, even when the eggs of the 

 others have been hatched for some weeks past, 

 the mothers come daily to the threshold of the 

 burrow and hold out their wallets for incubation 



