nvites him, with a gesture, to keep his distance. Having put the
intruder to flight, she quickly returns indoors.

And what does she do in there, under her arch of withered flowers and
silk? Night and day, she shields the precious eggs with her poor body
spread out flat. Eating is neglected. No more lying in wait, no more
Bees drained to the last drop of blood. Motionless, rapt in meditation,
the Spider is in an incubating posture, in other words, she is sitting on
her eggs. Strictly speaking, the word 'incubating' means that and
nothing else.

The brooding Hen is no more assiduous, but she is also a
heating-apparatus and, with the gentle warmth of her body, awakens the
germs to life. For the Spider, the heat of the sun suffices; and this
alone keeps me from saying that she 'broods.'

For two or three weeks, more and more wrinkled by abstinence, the little
Spider never relaxes her position. Then comes the hatching. The
youngsters stretch a few threads in swing-like curves from twig to twig.
The tiny rope-dancers practise for some days in the sun; then they
disperse, each intent upon his own affairs.

Let us now look at the watch-tower of the nest. The mother is still
there, but this time lifeless. The devoted creature has known the
delight of seeing her family born; she has assisted the weaklings through
the trap-door; and, when her duty was done, very gently she died. The
Hen does not reach this height of self-abnegation.

Other Spiders do better still, as, for instance, the Narbonne Lycosa, or
Black-bellied Tarantula (_Lycosa narbonnensis_, WALCK.), whose prowess
has been described in an earlier chapter. The reader will remember her
burrow, her pit of a bottle-neck's width, dug in the pebbly soil beloved
by the lavender and the thyme. The mouth is rimmed by a bastion of
gravel and bits of wood cemented with silk. There is nothing else around
her dwelling: no web, no snares of any kind.

From her inch-high turret, the Lycosa lies in wait for the passing
Locust. She gives a bound, pursues the prey and suddenly deprives it of
motion with a bite in the neck. The game is consumed on the spot, or
else in the lair; the insect's tough hide arouses no disgust. The sturdy
huntress is not a drinker of blood, like the Epeira; she needs solid
food, food that crackles between the jaws. She is like a Dog devouring
his bone.

Would you care to bring her to the light of day from the depths of her
well? Inse