THE NATURAL 



dation been finished when the ogress turns, leaping, and 

 devours the suitor on the very spot of his amours. They 

 say that she does not always wait for the end of the 

 operation, and that preferring a good meal to a caress, 

 she interrupts the performance with a slap of her man- 

 dibles. When the male has the luck to escape he disap- 

 pears like a flash, goes down his thread like greased 

 lightning. The argyronete uses manoeuvres analogous, 

 but even more curious. It is a water spider, which goes 

 under water in an ingenious small diving-bell, a future 

 nest. The female having made her diving-bell, the male, 

 not daring to present himself thinks out the wheeze of 

 making another bell just next that of the female. Then 

 at a propitious moment he breaks through the dividing 

 wall and profits by the surprise of his sudden entry. 

 When it is a matter of not being eaten, all means are the 

 right ones. 



The tarantula, whose habits are far from gentle, is not 

 cruel to her suitor. This monster who spins no web, 

 spins out a long idyllic courtship. Extended preludes, 

 puerile games, delicate caresses, lambkins' leapings. Fin- 

 ally the female surrenders fully. The male places her as 

 he wishes, chooses for her the pose most pleasing to him, 

 and lies obliquely against her, gently and repeatedly tak- 

 ing the sperm from his abdomen he insinuates each of 

 his palpes, one after the other in the swollen vulva of the 

 female. The break-away is sudden, a jump. Still more 

 tender are the courtships of the leaping spider; they ad- 

 vance by little rushes, stop, watch, leap on their prey, 

 insect or fly, or else float at the wind's will on the end of 

 a long hanging web-thread. When male and female meet, 

 116 



