avoid each other, both being equally timid. A judicious
shake or two brings them into contact. The Segestria, from time to time,
catches hold of the Pompilus, who gathers herself up as best she can,
without attempting to use her sting; the Spider rolls the insect between
her legs and even between her mandibles, but appears to dislike doing
it. Once I see her lie on her back and hold the Pompilus above her,
as far away as possible, while turning her over in her fore-legs
and munching at her with her mandibles. The Wasp, whether by her own
adroitness or owing to the Spider's dread of her, promptly escapes
from the terrible fangs, moves to a short distance and does not seem to
trouble unduly about the buffeting which she has received. She quietly
polishes her wings and curls her antennae by pulling them while standing
on them with her fore-tarsi. The attack of the Segestria, stimulated by
my shakes, is repeated ten times over; and the Pompilus always escapes
from the venomous fangs unscathed, as though she were invulnerable.

Is she really invulnerable? By no means, as we shall soon have proved to
us; if she retires safe and sound, it is because the Spider does not use
her fangs. What we see is a sort of truce, a tacit convention forbidding
deadly strokes, or rather the demoralization due to captivity; and the
two adversaries are no longer in a sufficiently warlike mood to make
play with their daggers. The tranquillity of the Pompilus, who keeps on
jauntily curling her antennae in face of the Segestria, reassures me
as to my prisoner's fate; for greater security, however, I throw her a
scrap of paper, in the folds of which she will find a refuge during
the night. She instals herself there, out of the Spider's reach. Next
morning I find her dead. During the night the Segestria, whose habits
are nocturnal, has recovered her daring and stabbed her enemy. I had
my suspicions that the parts played might be reversed! The butcher of
yesterday is the victim of to-day.

I replace the Pompilus by a Hive-bee. The interview is not protracted.
Two hours later, the Bee is dead, bitten by the Spider. A Drone-fly
suffers the same fate. The Segestria, however, does not touch either of
the two corpses, any more than she touched the corpse of the Pompilus.
In these murders the captive seems to have no other object than to rid
herself of a turbulent neighbour. When appetite awakes, perhaps the
victims will be turned to account. They were not;