Wasp opposes her venomous stiletto. Which of the two bandits shall
have the best of it? The struggle is a hand-to-hand one. The Tarantula
has no secondary means of defence, no cord to bind her victim, no trap to
subdue her. When the Epeira, or Garden Spider, sees an insect entangled
in her great upright web, she hastens up and covers the captive with
corded meshes and silk ribbons by the armful, making all resistance
impossible. When the prey is solidly bound, a prick is carefully
administered with the poison-fangs; then the Spider retires, waiting for
the death-throes to calm down, after which the huntress comes back to the
game. In these conditions, there is no serious danger.

In the case of the Lycosa, the job is riskier. She has naught to serve
her but her courage and her fangs and is obliged to leap upon the
formidable prey, to master it by her dexterity, to annihilate it, in a
measure, by her swift-slaying talent.

Annihilate is the word: the Bumble-bees whom I draw from the fatal hole
are a sufficient proof. As soon as that shrill buzzing, which I called
the death-song, ceases, in vain I hasten to insert my forceps: I always
bring out the insect dead, with slack proboscis and limp legs. Scarce a
few quivers of those legs tell me that it is a quite recent corpse. The
Bumble-bee's death is instantaneous. Each time that I take a fresh
victim from the terrible slaughter-house, my surprise is renewed at the
sight of its sudden immobility.

Nevertheless, both animals have very nearly the same strength; for I
choose my Bumble-bees from among the largest (_Bombus hortorum_ and _B.
terrestris_). Their weapons are almost equal: the Bee's dart can bear
comparison with the Spider's fangs; the sting of the first seems to me as
formidable as the bite of the second. How comes it that the Tarantula
always has the upper hand and this moreover in a very short conflict,
whence she emerges unscathed? There must certainly be some cunning
strategy on her part. Subtle though her poison may be, I cannot believe
that its mere injection, at any point whatever of the victim, is enough
to produce so prompt a catastrophe. The ill-famed rattlesnake does not
kill so quickly, takes hours to achieve that for which the Tarantula does
not require a second. We must, therefore, look for an explanation of
this sudden death to the vital importance of the point attacked by the
Spider, rather than to the virulence of the poison.

Wh