sses my
expectations. Possessing more windfalls than they know what to do with,
all picked up in their immediate neighbourhood, my Lycosae have built
themselves donjon-keeps the like of which their race has not yet known.
Around the orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth
stones have been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement. The larger
stones, which are Cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animal
that has shifted them, are employed as abundantly as the others.

On this rockwork stands the donjon. It is an interlacing of raphia and
bits of wool, picked up at random, without distinction of shade. Red and
white, green and yellow are mixed without any attempt at order. The
Lycosa is indifferent to the joys of colour.

The ultimate result is a sort of muff, a couple of inches high. Bands of
silk, supplied by the spinnerets, unite the pieces, so that the whole
resembles a coarse fabric. Without being absolutely faultless, for there
are always awkward pieces on the outside, which the worker could not
handle, the gaudy building is not devoid of merit. The bird lining its
nest would do no better. Whoso sees the curious, many-coloured
productions in my pans takes them for an outcome of my industry,
contrived with a view to some experimental mischief; and his surprise is
great when I confess who the real author is. No one would ever believe
the Spider capable of constructing such a monument.

It goes without saying that, in a state of liberty, on our barren waste-
lands, the Lycosa does not indulge in such sumptuous architecture. I
have given the reason: she is too great a stay-at-home to go in search of
materials and she makes use of the limited resources which she finds
around her. Bits of earth, small chips of stone, a few twigs, a few
withered grasses: that is all, or nearly all. Wherefore the work is
generally quite modest and reduced to a parapet that hardly attracts
attention.

My captives teach us that, when materials are plentiful, especially
textile materials that remove all fears of landslip, the Lycosa delights
in tall turrets. She understands the art of donjon-building and puts it
into practice as often as she possesses the means.

This art is akin to another, from which it is apparently derived. If the
sun be fierce or if rain threaten, the Lycosa closes the entrance to her
dwelling with a silken trellis-work, wherein she embeds different
matters, often the remnants