upon it, so as to escape the chill
of the water and dry her wings for flight. But she was too heavy. The
moth sank, and rolled over, at the same time being thrust against the
wall of the pitcher. The ant, in high indignation clutched a bundle of
the hostile hairs in her mandibles, and held herself at anchor against
the wall.

Thoroughly used up, and stupid with panic and chill, the bee kept on
futilely grappling with the moth's body, which, in its turn, kept on
sinking and rolling beneath her. A very few minutes of such disastrous
folly sufficed to end the struggle, and soon the bee was floating,
drowned and motionless, beside the moth. Then the ant, with
satisfaction, returned to her refuge.

When things get started happening, they are quite apt to keep it up for
awhile, as if events invited events. A large hunting spider, creeping
among the grass and weeds, discovered the handsome cluster of the
sarracenia. She was one of the few creatures who had learned the secret
of the pitcher-plant and knew how to turn it to account. More than once
had she found easy prey in some trapped insect struggling near the top
of a well-filled pitcher.

Selecting the largest pitcher as the one most likely to yield results,
the spider climbed its stem. Then she mounted the bright swell of the
pitcher itself, whose smooth outer surface offered no obstacle to such
visitors. The pitcher swayed and bowed. The water within washed heavily.
And the ant, with new alarm, marked the big, black shadow of the spider
creeping up the outside of her prison.

Having reached the lip of the leaf and cautiously crawled over upon it,
the spider took no risks with those traitor hairs. She threw two or
three stout cables of web across the lip; and then, with this secure
anchorage by which to pull herself back, she ventured fearlessly down
the steep of that perilous throat. One hooked claw, outstretched behind
her, held aloft the cable which exuded from her spinnerets as she moved.

On the extreme of the slope she stopped, and her red, jewelled cluster
of eyes glared fiercely down upon the little black ant. The latter
shrank and crouched, and tried to hide herself under the side of the
dead moth to escape the light of those baleful eyes. This new peril was
one which appalled her far more than all the others she had encountered.

At this most critical of all crises in the destiny of the little black
ant, the fickle Fortune of the Wild was seized with anothe