DEATH AND ITS DISGUISES. I I." 



spider ancestor may have been a feeble beginning of tin- habit, which 

 gradually was developed into the fixod characters which wo now 

 Origin observe. A supposition of this sort, it is true, has n<> (arts In 

 support it, but is in accordance with prevailing ideas as to 

 the evolution of many, if not all the interesting traits in ani- 

 mal behavior. 



In this connection one may perhaps allude to the remarkable sem- 

 blance of death into which the spider involuntarily falls when pricked 

 with the sting of the digger wasp. I have referred to this in the preced- 

 ing chapter, and quote here in confirmation a remark of Mr. Fat ire, de- 

 scriptive of the condition of Lycosa narbonensis of France, after being 

 paralyzed by Pompilus annulatus. The spider is immobile, lithe 

 ea . as when living, without the slightest trace of a wound. It is 

 life, in fact, minus movement. Viewed from a distance, the tip 

 of the feet tremble a little ; and that is all. One specimen disentombed 

 from a wasp's burrow was placed in a box, where it kept fresh, preserv- 

 ing the flexibility of life from the 2d of August to the 20th of September, 

 a space of seven weeks. 1 With spiders in such condition there is really 

 no appearance of death. They are unconscious though living, and t lien-- 

 fore make no sham of being dead. 



1 J. II. Fabre, Nouveraux Souvenicrs Entomologiquee. similes upon tin- lustim-t mul 

 Habits of Insects, \>w :>10, 1882. 



