The Banded Epeira 



hole in the net and passing through it in their 

 impetuous onrush, can be but rarely caught. 

 I mjrself place them on the web. The Spider 

 does the rest. La\nshing her silky spray, she 

 swathes them and then sucks the body at her 

 ease, ^^^th an increased expenditure of the 

 spinnerets, the very biggest game is mastered 

 as successfully as the every-day prey. 



I have seen even better than that. This 

 time, my subject is the Silky Epeira {Epeira 

 sericea, (Ouv.), with a broad, festooned, 

 silvery abdomen. Like that of the other, 

 her web is large, upright and 'signed' with 

 a zigzag ribbon. I place upon it a Praying 

 Mantis,* a well-developed specimen, quite 

 capable of changing roles, should clrcimi- 

 stances permit, and herself making a meal off 

 her assailant. It is a question no longer of 

 capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierce and 

 powerful ogre, who would rip open the 

 Epeira's paundi with one blow of her har- 

 poons. 



^■\n insect akin to the Locusts and Crickets, which, 

 when at rest, adopts an atdtade resembling that of 

 prayer, WTien attacking, it assumes what is known as 

 the ^>ectral attitude.' Its fore-legs form a sort of 

 saw-like or barbed harpoons. Cf. Social Life m the 

 Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard 

 Miall : Chaps, v to to. — Translator's Xote. 



8S 



