of
insects, with their highly-resistant organisms.

Besides, is it really a corpse that the Epeira wants, she who feeds on
blood much more than on flesh? It were to her advantage to suck a live
body, wherein the flow of the liquids, set in movement by the pulsation
of the dorsal vessel, that rudimentary heart of insects, must act more
freely than in a lifeless body, with its stagnant fluids. The game
which the Spider means to suck dry might very well not be dead. This is
easily ascertained.

I place some Locusts of different species on the webs in my menagerie,
one on this, another on that. The Spider comes rushing up, binds the
prey, nibbles at it gently and withdraws, waiting for the bite to take
effect. I then take the insect and carefully strip it of its silken
shroud. The Locust is not dead; far from it; one would even think that
he had suffered no harm. I examine the released prisoner through the
lens in vain; I can see no trace of a wound.

Can he be unscathed, in spite of the sort of kiss which I saw given to
him just now? You would be ready to say so, judging by the furious way
in which he kicks in my fingers. Nevertheless, when put on the ground,
he walks awkwardly, he seems reluctant to hop. Perhaps it is a
temporary trouble, caused by his terrible excitement in the web. It
looks as though it would soon pass.

I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce-leaf to console them for
their trials; but they will not be comforted. A day elapses, followed
by a second. Not one of them touches the leaf of salad; their appetite
has disappeared. Their movements become more uncertain, as though
hampered by irresistible torpor. On the second day they are dead,
everyone irrecoverably dead.

The Epeira, therefore, does not incontinently kill her prey with her
delicate bite; she poisons it so as to produce a gradual weakness,
which gives the blood-sucker ample time to drain her victim, without
the least risk, before the rigor mortis stops the flow of moisture.

The meal lasts quite twenty-four hours, if the joint be large; and to
the very end the butchered insect retains a remnant of life, a
favourable condition for the exhausting of the juices. Once again, we
see a skilful method of slaughter, very different from the tactics in
use among the expert paralysers or slayers. Here there is no display of
anatomical science. Unacquainted with the patient's structure, the
Spider stabs at random. The virulence of the poison do