286 The Life of the Spider 



part, because of the variety of the game that 

 comes her way. I see her accepting with equal 

 readiness whatever chance may send her : 

 Butterflies and Dragon-flies, Flies and Wasps, 

 small Dung-beetles and Locusts. If I offer her 

 a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia — the equiva- 

 lent of the common Cockchafer — and other 

 dishes probably unknown to her race, she 

 accepts all and any, large and small, thin- 

 skinned and horny-skinned, that which goes 

 afoot and that which takes winged flight. She 

 is omnivorous, she preys on everything, down 

 to her own kind, should the occasion offer. 



Had she to operate according to individual 

 structure, she would need an anatomical dic- 

 tionary ; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar 

 with generalities : its knowledge is always con- 

 fined to limited points. The Cerceres know 

 their Weevils and their Buprestis-beetles abso- 

 lutely ; the Sphex their Grasshoppers, their 

 Crickets and their Locusts ; the Scoliae ^ their 



* The Scolia is a Digger-wasp, like the Cerceris and the Sphex, 

 and feeds her larvae on the grubs of the Cetonia, or Rose-chafer, 

 and the Oryctes, or Rhinoceros Beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of 

 the Insect^ by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de 

 Mattos : chap. xi. — Translator's Note. 



