a state of torpor. Perhaps
this kindlier bite gives her greater facility in working her pump. The
humours, if stagnant, in a corpse, would not respond so readily to the
action of the sucker; they are more easily extracted from a live body, in
which they move about.

The Epeira, therefore, being a drinker of blood, moderates the virulence
of her sting, even with victims of appalling size, so sure is she of her
retiarian art. The long-legged Tryxalis, {17} the corpulent Grey Locust,
the largest of our Grasshoppers are accepted without hesitation and
sucked dry as soon as numbed. Those giants, capable of making a hole in
the net and passing through it in their impetuous onrush, can be but
rarely caught. I myself place them on the web. The Spider does the
rest. Lavishing her silky spray, she swathes them and then sucks the
body at her ease. With an increased expenditure of the spinnerets, the
very biggest game is mastered as successfully as the everyday prey.

I have seen even better than that. This time, my subject is the Silky
Epeira (_Epeira sericea_, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned, silvery
abdomen. Like that of the other, her web is large, upright and 'signed'
with a zigzag ribbon. I place upon it a Praying Mantis, {18} a
well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing roles, should
circumstances permit, and herself making a meal off her assailant. It is
a question no longer of capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierce and
powerful ogre, who would rip open the Epeira's paunch with one blow of
her harpoons.

Will the Spider dare? Not immediately. Motionless in the centre of her
net, she consults her strength before attacking the formidable quarry;
she waits until the struggling prey has its claws more thickly entangled.
At last, she approaches. The Mantis curls her belly; lifts her wings
like vertical sails; opens her saw-toothed arm-pieces; in short, adopts
the spectral attitude which she employs when delivering battle.

The Spider disregards these menaces. Spreading wide her spinnerets, she
pumps out sheets of silk which the hind-legs draw out, expand and fling
without stint in alternate armfuls. Under this shower of threads, the
Mantis' terrible saws, the lethal legs, quickly disappear from sight, as
do the wings, still erected in the spectral posture.

Meanwhile, the swathed one gives sudden jerks, which make the Spider fall
out of her web. The accident is provided for. A safety-cord, emitt