164 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [14:4— April, 1918 



and then grew suddenly bold and tickled the top of her abdomen. 

 The spider was skillful in her boldness, too, for she danced and 

 tickled so quickly from top to bottom and from side to side of the 

 wasp's writhing abdomen that the sting could never take aim. 

 Soon only the tip with its sting was left unbound, and the spider 

 fastened a thread to the front of the abdomen, drawing her victim 

 up farther as she ran up her web. Down she dropped again and 

 caught the wasp's head with a thread, pulled her up and fastened 

 the thread to the step, and then dropped down again to repeat her 

 trick. 



The wasp could not resign her life even when she was hanging 

 high up at the top of the web, with her legs, wings, body and head 

 entangled in meshes of clinging silk. She struggled feebly without 

 ceasing and a deadly shiver of pain ran through every part of her as 

 the eager spider pierced a soft place in her neck. The spider sat 

 for a long while slowly sucking the life juices from her prisoner, as 

 if with an evil joy in the wasp's writhings as she died. Do you 

 think the instinct that had taught her so well how to capture this 

 dangerous creature much larger and stronger than herself, heigh- 

 tened her cruel joy by reminding her what the wasp had come 

 flying hither in search of? 



War and Nature 



John Price Jones 



Assistant Director, in Charge, Press Bureau Liberty Loan Committee 

 (Written exclusively for the Nature-Study Review) 



While the horrors of the world war precipitated by ruthless 

 ambition have shocked Americans of all classes, to none have the 

 devastations been brought home with such poignancy as to nature 

 lovers. The appalling loss of life must overshadow all else, but 

 to the outrages committed upon mankind have been added 

 destruction of Nature that has been fiendish. 



To most of us who have enjoyed the intimacies of Nature, 

 the thoughts of the mutilations and the desecrations she has 

 suffered at the hands of those who have attacked her deliberately 

 and maliciously must arouse deep disgust and determination to 

 do all in our power to end these conditions as soon as possible. 

 There is only one way that they can be stopped. The war to 



