THE BANDED EPEIRA 191 



about three o'clock in the afternoon, when she has 

 captured a Locust. Planted in the center of the web, 

 on her resting-floor, she attacks the venison at the joint 

 of a haunch. There is no movement, not even of the 

 mouth-parts, so far as I am able to discover. The mouth 

 lingers, close-applied, at the point originally bitten. 

 There are no intermittent mouth fuls, with the mandibles 

 moving backwards and forwards. It is a sort of con- 

 tinuous kiss. 



I visit my Epeira at intervals. The mouth does not 

 change its place. I visit her for the last time at nine 

 o'clock in the evening. Matters stand exactly as they 

 did: after six hours' consumption, the mouth is still 

 sucking at the lower end of the right haunch. The fluid 

 contents of the victim are transferred to the ogress* 

 belly, I know not how. 



Next morning, the Spider is still at table. I take away 

 her dish. Naught remains of the Locust but his skin, 

 hardly altered in shape, but utterly drained and per- 

 forated in several places. The method, therefore, was 

 changed during the night. To extract the non-fluent 

 residue, the viscera and muscles, the stiff cuticle had to 

 be tapped here, there and elsewhere, after which the 

 tattered husk, placed bodily in the press of the man- 

 dibles, would have been chewed, re-chewed and finally 

 reduced to a pill, which the sated Spider throws up. 

 This would have been the end of the victim, had I not 

 taken it away before the time. 



Whether she wound or kill, the Epeira bites her 

 captive somewhere or other, no matter where. This is 



