eggs and by her expenditure of silk, she lives only for the protection of
her nest.

Should some vagrant pass near by, she hurries from her watch-tower, lifts
a limb and puts the intruder to flight. If I tease her with a straw, she
parries with big gestures, like those of a prize-fighter. She uses her
fists against my weapon. When I propose to dislodge her in view of
certain experiments, I find some difficulty in doing so. She clings to
the silken floor, she frustrates my attacks, which I am bound to moderate
lest I should injure her. She is no sooner attracted outside than she
stubbornly returns to her post. She declines to leave her treasure.

Even so does the Narbonne Lycosa struggle when we try to take away her
pill. Each displays the same pluck and the same devotion; and also the
same denseness in distinguishing her property from that of others. The
Lycosa accepts without hesitation any strange pill which she is, given in
exchange for her own; she confuses alien produce with the produce of her
ovaries and her silk-factory. Those hallowed words, maternal love, were
out of place here: it is an impetuous, an almost mechanical impulse,
wherein real affection plays no part whatever. The beautiful Spider of
the rock-roses is no more generously endowed. When moved from her nest
to another of the same kind, she settles upon it and never stirs from it,
even though the different arrangement of the leafy fence be such as to
warn her that she is not really at home. Provided that she have satin
under her feet, she does not notice her mistake; she watches over
another's nest with the same vigilance which she might show in watching
over her own.

The Lycosa surpasses her in maternal blindness. She fastens to her
spinnerets and dangles, by way of a bag of eggs, a ball of cork polished
with my file, a paper pellet, a little ball of thread. In order to
discover if the Thomisus is capable of a similar error, I gathered some
broken pieces of silk-worm's cocoon into a closed cone, turning the
fragments so as to bring the smoother and more delicate inner surface
outside. My attempt was unsuccessful. When removed from her home and
placed on the artificial wallet, the mother Thomisus obstinately refused
to settle there. Can she be more clear-sighted than the Lycosa? Perhaps
so. Let us not be too extravagant with our praise, however; the
imitation of the bag was a very clumsy one.

The work of laying is finished by