The Crab Spider 195 



rises higher, it crosses over the cypress-screen, 

 it disappears. Others follow, some higher, some 

 lower, hither and thither. 



But the throng has finished its preparations ; 

 the hour has come to disperse in swarms. We 

 now see, from the crest of the brushwood, a 

 continuous spray of starters, who shoot up like 

 microscopic projectiles and mount in a spreading 

 cluster. In the end, it is like the bouquet at 

 the finish of a pyrotechnic display, the sheaf of 

 rockets fired simultaneously. The comparison is 

 correct down to the dazzling light itself. Flam- 

 ing in the sun like so many gleaming points, the 

 little Spiders are the sparks of that living fire- 

 work. What a glorious send-off ! What an 

 entrance into the world ! Clutching its aero- 

 nautic thread, the minute creature mounts in an 

 apotheosis. 



Sooner or later, nearer or farther, the fall 

 comes. To live, we have to descend, often very 

 low, alas ! The Crested Lark crumbles the 

 mule-droppings in the road and thus picks up 

 his food, the oaten grain which he would never 

 find by soaring in the sky, his throat swollen 

 with song. We have to descend ; the stomach's 



