Produced by Sue Asscher
MORE HUNTING WASPS
By J. Henri Fabre
Translated By Alexander Teixeira De Mattos, F. Z. S.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
The fourteen chapters contained in this volume complete the list of
essays in the "Souvenirs entomologiques" devoted to Wasps. The remainder
will be found in the two earlier volumes of this collected edition
entitled "The Hunting Wasps" and the "Mason-wasps" respectively.
Chapter 2 has appeared before in my version of "The Life and Love of
the Insect," an illustrated volume of extracts translated by myself and
published by Messrs. Adam and Charles Black (in America by the Macmillan
Co.), and Chapter 10 in a similar miscellany translated by Mr. Bernard
Miall published by Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. (in America by the
Century Co.) under the title of "Social Life in the Insect World." These
two chapters are included in the present book by arrangement with the
original firms.
I wish to place on record my thanks to Mr. Miall for the valuable
assistance which he has given me in preparing this translation.
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.
Ventnor, I. W., 6 December, 1920.
CONTENTS.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
CHAPTER 1. THE POMPILI.
CHAPTER 2. THE SCOLIAE.
CHAPTER 3. A DANGEROUS DIET.
CHAPTER 4. THE CETONIA-LARVA.
CHAPTER 5. THE PROBLEM OF THE SCOLIAE.
CHAPTER 6. THE TACHYTES.
CHAPTER 7. CHANGE OF DIET.
CHAPTER 8. A DIG AT THE EVOLUTIONISTS.
CHAPTER 9. RATIONING ACCORDING TO SEX.
CHAPTER 10. THE BEE-EATING PHILANTHUS.
CHAPTER 11. THE METHOD OF THE AMMOPHILAE.
CHAPTER 12. THE METHOD OF THE SCOLIAE.
CHAPTER 13. THE METHOD OF THE CALICURGI.
CHAPTER 14. OBJECTIONS AND REJOINDERS.
INDEX.
CHAPTER 1. THE POMPILI.
(This essay should be read in conjunction with that on the Black-bellied
Tarantula. Cf. "The Life of the Spider," by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 1.--Translator's Note.)
The Ammophila's caterpillar (Cf. "The Hunting Wasps," by J. Henri Fabre,
translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 13 and 18 to 20;
and Chapter 11 of the present volume.--Translator's Note.), the Bembex
(Cf. idem: chapter 14.--Translator's Note.), Gad-fly, the Cerceris (Cf.
idem: chapters 1 to 3.--Translator's Note.), Buprestis (A Beetle
usually remarkable for her brilliant colouring. Cf. idem: chapter
1.--Translator's Note.) and Weevil, the Sphex (Cf. idem: chapter 4 to
10.--Translator's Note.), Locust, Cricket and Ephippiger (Cf. "The Life
of the Grasshopper," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 13 and 14.--Translator's Note.): all
these inoffensive peaceable victims are like the silly Sheep of our
slaughter-houses; they allow themselves to be operated upon by the
paralyser, submitting stupidly, without offering much resistance. The
mandibles gape, the legs kick and protest, the body wriggles and twists;
and that is all. They have no weapons capable of contending with the
assassin's dagger. I should like to see the huntress grappling with
an imposing adversary, one as crafty as herself, an expert layer of
ambushes and, like her, bearing a poisoned dirk. I should like to see
the bandit armed with her stiletto confronted by another bandit equally
familiar with the use of that weapon. Is such a duel possible? Yes, it
is quite possible and even quite common. On the one hand we have the
Pompili, the protagonists who are always victorious; on the other hand
we have the Spiders, the protagonists who are always overthrown.
Who that has diverted himself, however little, with the study of insects
does not know the Pompili? Against old walls, at the foot of the banks
beside unfrequented footpaths, in the stubble after the harvest, in the
tangles of dry grass, wherever the Spider spreads her nets, who has not
seen them busily at work, now running hither and thither, at random,
their wings raised and quivering above their backs, now moving from
place to place in flights long or short? They are hunting for a quarry
which might easily turn the tables and itself prey upon the trapper
lying in wait for it.
The Pompili feed their larvae solely on Spiders; and the Spiders feed on
any insect, commensurate with their size, that is caught in their nets.
While the first possess a sting, the second have two poisoned fangs.
Often their strength is equally matched; indeed the advantage is
not seldom on the Spider's side. The Wasp has her ruses of war, her
cunningly premeditated strokes: the Spider has her wiles and her set
traps; the first has the advantage of great rapidity of movement, while
the second is able to rely upon her perfidious web; the one has a sting
which contrives to penetrate the exact point to cause paralysis, the
other has fangs which bite the back of the neck and deal sudden death.
We find the paralyser on the one hand and the slaughterer on the other.
Which of the two will become the other's prey?
If we consider only the relative strength of the adversaries, the power
of their weapons, the virulence of their poisons and their different
modes of action, the scale would very often be weighted in favour of the
Spider. Since the Pompilus always emerges victorious from this contest,
which appears to be full of peril for her, she must have a special
method, of which I would fain learn the secret.
In our part of the country, the most powerful and courageous
Spider-huntress is the Ringed Pompilus (Calicurgus annulatus, FAB.),
clad in black and yellow. She stands high on her legs; and her wings
have black tips, the rest being yellow, as though exposed to smoke, like
a bloater. Her size is about that of the Hornet (Vespa crabro). She is
rare. I see three or four of her in the course of the year; and I never
fail to halt in the presence of the proud insect, rapidly striding
through the dust of the fields when the dog-days arrive. Its audacious
air, its uncouth gait, its war-like bearing long made me suspect that
to obtain its prey it had to make some impossible, terrible, unspeakable
capture. And my guess was correct. By dint of waiting and watching
I beheld that victim; I saw it in the huntress' mandibles. It is the
Black-bellied Tarantula, the terrible Spider who slays a Carpenter-bee
or a Bumble-bee outright with one stroke of her weapon; the Spider who
kills a Sparrow or a Mole; the formidable creature whose bite would
perhaps not be without danger to ourselves. Yes, this is the bill of
fare which the proud Pompilus provides for her larva.
This spectacle, one of the most striking with which the Hunting Wasps
have ever provided me, has as yet been offered to my eyes but once; and
that was close beside my rural home, in the famous laboratory of the
harmas. (The enclosed piece of waste land on which the author studied
his insects in their native state. Cf. "The Life of the Fly," by
J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter
1.--Translator's Note.) I can still see the intrepid poacher dragging by
the leg, at the foot of a wall, the monstrous prize which she had just
secured, doubtless at no great distance. At the base of the wall was a
hole, an accidental chink between some of the stones. The Wasp inspected
the cavern, not for the first time: she had already reconnoitred it
and the premises had satisfied her. The prey, deprived of the power of
movement, was waiting somewhere, I know not where; and the huntress had
gone back to fetch it and store it away. It was at this moment that
I met her. The Pompilus gave a last glance at the cave, removed a few
small fragments of loose mortar; and with that her preparations were
completed. The Lycosa (The Spider in question is known indifferently
as the Black-bellied Tarantula and the Narbonne Lycosa.--Translator's
Note.) was introduced, dragged along, belly upwards, by one leg. I
did not interfere. Presently the Wasp reappeared on the surface and
carelessly pushed in front of the hole the bits of mortar which she had
just extracted from it. Then she flew away. It was all over. The egg was
laid; the insect had finished for better or for worse; and I was able to
proceed with my examination of the burrow and its contents.
The Pompilus has done no digging. It is really an accidental hole with
spacious winding passages, the result of the mason's negligence and not
of the Wasp's industry. The closing of the cavity is quite as rough and
summary. A few crumbs of mortar, heaped up before the doorway, form a
barricade rather than a door. A mighty hunter makes a poor architect.
The Tarantula's murderess does not know how to dig a cell for her larva;
she does not know how to fill up the entrance by sweeping dust into it.
The first hole encountered at the foot of a wall contents her, provided
that it be roomy enough; a little heap of rubbish will do for a door.
Nothing could be more expeditious.
I withdraw the game from the hole. The egg is stuck to the Spider, near
the beginning of the belly. A clumsy movement on my part makes it fall
off at the moment of extraction. It is all over: the thing will not
hatch; I shall not be able to observe the development of the larva. The
Tarantula lies motionless, flexible as in life, with not a trace of a
wound. In short, we have here life without movement. From time to time
the tips of the tarsi quiver a little; and that is all. Accustomed of
old to these deceptive corpses, I can see in my mind's eye what has
happened: the Spider has been stung in the region of the thorax, no
doubt once only, in view of the concentration of her nervous system. I
place the victim in a box in which it retains all the pliancy and all
the freshness of life from the 2nd of August to the 20th of September,
that is to say, for seven weeks. These miracles are familiar to us (Cf.
"The Hunting Wasps": passim.--Translator's Note.); there is no need to
linger over them here.
The most important matter has escaped me. What I wanted, what I still
want to see is the Pompilus engaged in mortal combat with the Lycosa.
What a duel, in which the cunning of the one has to overcome the
terrible weapons of the other! Does the Wasp enter the burrow to
surprise the Tarantula at the bottom of her lair? Such temerity would
be fatal to her. Where the big Bumble-bee dies an instant death, the
audacious visitor would perish the moment she entered. Is not the other
there, facing her, ready to snap at the back of her head, inflicting
a wound which would result in sudden death? No, the Pompilus does not
enter the Spider's parlour, that is obvious. Does she surprise the
Spider outside her fortress? But the Lycosa is a stay-at-home animal; I
do not see her straying abroad during the summer. Later, in the autumn,
when the Pompili have disappeared, She wanders about; turning gipsy, she
takes the open air with her numerous family, which she carries on her
back. Apart from these maternal strolls, she does not appear to me to
leave her castle; and the Pompilus, I should think, has no great
chance of meeting her outside. The problem, we perceive, is becoming
complicated: the huntress cannot make her way into the burrow, where
she would risk sudden death; and the Spider's sedentary habits make an
encounter outside the burrow improbable. Here is a riddle which would
be interesting to decipher. Let us endeavour to do so by observing other
Spider-hunters; analogy will enable us to draw a conclusion.
I have often watched Pompili of every species on their
hunting-expeditions, but I have never surprised them entering the
Spider's lodging when the latter was at home. Whether this lodging be a
funnel plunging its neck into a hole in some wall, an awning stretched
amid the stubble, a tent modelled upon the Arab's, a sheath formed of a
few leaves bound together, or a net with a guard-room attached, whenever
the owner is indoors the suspicious Pompilus holds aloof. When the
dwelling is vacant, it is another matter: the Wasp moves with arrogant
ease over those webs, springes and cables in which so many other insects
would remain ensnared. The silken threads do not seem to have any hold
upon her. What is she doing, exploring those empty webs? She is watching
to see what is happening on the adjacent webs where the Spider is
ambushed. The Pompilus therefore feels an insuperable reluctance to make
straight for the Spider when the latter is at home in the midst of
her snares. And she is right, a hundred times over. If the Tarantula
understands the practice of the dagger-thrust in the neck, which is
immediately fatal, the other cannot be unacquainted with it. Woe then to
the imprudent Wasp who presents herself upon the threshold of a Spider
of approximately equal strength!
Of the various instances which I have collected of this cautious reserve
on the Spider-huntress' part I will confine myself to the following,
which will be sufficient to prove my point. By joining, with silken
strands, the three folioles which form the leaf of Virgil's cytisus, a
Spider has built herself a green arbour, a horizontal sheath, open at
either end. A questing Pompilus comes upon the scene, finds the game to
her liking and pops in her head at the entrance of the cell. The Spider
immediately retreats to the other end. The huntress goes round the
Spider's dwelling and reappears at the other door. Again the Spider
retreats, returning to the first entrance. The Wasp also returns to it,
but always by the outside. Scarcely has she done so, when the Spider
rushes for the opposite opening; and so on for fully a quarter of an
hour, both of them coming and going from one end of the cylinder to the
other, the Spider inside and the Pompilus outside.
The quarry was a valuable one, it seems, since the Wasp persisted for a
long time in her attempts, which were invariably defeated; however, the
huntress had to abandon them, baffled by this perpetual running to and
fro. The Pompilus made off; and the Spider, once more on the watch,
patiently awaited the heedless Midges. What should the Wasp have done
to capture this much-coveted game? She should have entered the verdant
cylinder, the Spider's dwelling, and pursued the Spider direct, in her
own house, instead of remaining outside, going from one door to the
other. With such swiftness and dexterity as hers, it seemed to me
impossible that the stroke should fail: the quarry moved clumsily, a
little sideways, like a Crab. I judged it to be an easy matter; the
Pompilus thought it highly dangerous. To-day I am of her opinion: if
she had entered the leafy tube, the mistress of the house would have
operated on her neck and the huntress would have become the quarry.
Years passed and the paralyser of the Spiders still refused to reveal
her secret; I was badly served by circumstances, could find no leisure,
was absorbed in unrelenting preoccupations. At length, during my last
year at Orange, the light dawned upon me. My garden was enclosed by an
old wall, blackened and ruined by time, where, in the chinks between the
stones, lived a population of Spiders, represented more particularly by
Segestria perfidia. This is the common Black Spider, or Cellar Spider.
She is deep black all over, excepting the mandibles, which are a
splendid metallic green. Her two poisoned daggers look like a product of
the metal-worker's art, like the finest bronze. In any mass of abandoned
masonry there is not a quiet corner, not a hole the size of one's
finger, in which the Segestria does not set up house. Her web is a
widely flaring funnel, whose open end, at most a span across, lies
spread upon the surface of the wall, where it is held in place by
radiating threads. This conical surface is continued by a tube which
runs into a hole in the wall. At the end is the dining-room to which the
Spider retires to devour at her ease her captured prey.
With her two hind-legs stuck into the tube to obtain a purchase and the
six others spread around the orifice, the better to perceive on every
side the quiver which gives the signal of a capture, the Segestria
waits motionless, at the entrance of her funnel, for an insect to become
entangled in the snare. Large Flies, Drone-flies, dizzily grazing some
thread of the snare with their wings, are her usual victims. At the
first flutter of the netted Fly, the Spider runs or even leaps forward,
but she is now secured by a cord which escapes from the spinnerets and
which has its end fastened to the silken tube. This prevents her from
falling as she darts along a vertical surface. Bitten at the back of the
head, the Drone-fly is dead in a moment; and the Segestria carries him
into her lair.
Thanks to this method and these hunting-appliances--an ambush at the
bottom of a silken whirlpool, radiating snares, a life-line which holds
her from behind and allows her to take a sudden rush without risking
a fall--the Segestria is able to catch game less inoffensive than the
Drone-fly. A Common Wasp, they tell me, does not daunt her. Though I
have not tested this, I readily believe it, for I well know the Spider's
boldness.
This boldness is reinforced by the activity of the venom. It is enough
to have seen the Segestria capture some large Fly to be convinced of the
overwhelming effect of her fangs upon the insects bitten in the
neck. The death of the Drone-fly, entangled in the silken funnel,
is reproduced by the sudden death of the Bumble-bee on entering the
Tarantula's burrow. We know the effect of the poison on man, thanks
to Antoine Duges' investigations. (Antoine Louis Duges (1797-1838), a
French physician and physiologist, author of a "Traite de
physiologie comparee de l'homme et des animaux" and other scientific
works.--Translator's Note.) Let us listen to the brave experimenter:
"The treacherous Segestria, or Great Cellar Spider, reputed poisonous
in our part of the country, was chosen for the principal subject of our
experiments. She was three-quarters of an inch long, measured from the
mandibles to the spinnerets. Taking her in my fingers from behind, by
the legs, which were folded and gathered together (this is the way to
catch hold of live Spiders, if you would avoid their bite and master
them without mutilating them), I placed her on various objects and on
my clothes, without her manifesting the least desire to do any harm; but
hardly was she laid on the bare skin of my fore-arm when she seized a
fold of the epidermis in her powerful mandibles, which are of a metallic
green, and drove her fangs deep into it. For a few moments she remained
hanging, although left free; then she released herself, fell and fled,
leaving two tiny wounds, a sixth of an inch apart, red, but hardly
bleeding, with a slight extravasation round the edge and resembling the
wounds produced by a large pin.
"At the moment of the bite, the sensation was sharp enough to deserve
the name of pain; and this continued for five or six minutes more, but
not so forcibly. I might compare it with the sensation produced by the
stinging-nettle. A whitish tumefaction almost immediately surrounded the
two pricks; and the circumference, within a radius of about an inch, was
coloured an erysipelas red, accompanied by a very slight swelling. In an
hour and a half, it had all disappeared, except the mark of the pricks,
which persisted for several days, as any other small wound would
have done. This was in September, in rather cool weather. Perhaps the
symptoms would have displayed somewhat greater severity at a warmer
season."
Without being serious, the effect of the Segestria's poison is plainly
marked. A sting causing sharp pain and swelling, with the redness of
erysipelas, is no trifling matter. While Duges' experiment reassures us
in so far as we ourselves are concerned, it is none the less the fact
that the Cellar Spider's poison is a terrible thing for insects, whether
because of the small size of the victim, or because it acts with special
efficacy upon an organization which differs widely from our own. One
Pompilus, though greatly inferior to the Segestria in size and
strength, nevertheless makes war upon the Black Spider and succeeds in
overpowering this formidable quarry. This is Pompilus apicalis, VAN DER
LIND, who is hardly larger than the Hive-bee, but very much slenderer.
She is of a uniform black; her wings are a cloudy brown, with
transparent tips. Let us follow her in her expeditions to the old wall
inhabited by the Segestria: we will track her for whole afternoons
during the July heats; and we will arm ourselves with patience, for the
perilous capture of the game must take the Wasp a long time.
The Spider-huntress explores the wall minutely; she runs, leaps and
flies; she comes and goes, flitting to and fro. The antennae quiver; the
wings, raised above the back, continually beat one against the other.
Ah, here she is, close to a Segestria's funnel! The Spider, who has
hitherto remained invisible, instantly appears at the entrance to
the tube; she spreads her six fore-legs outside, ready to receive the
huntress. Far from fleeing before the terrible apparition, she watches
the watcher, fully prepared to prey upon her enemy. Before this intrepid
demeanour the Pompilus draws back. She examines the coveted game, walks
round it for a moment, then goes away without attempting anything. When
she has gone, the Segestria retires indoors, backwards. For the second
time the Wasp passes near an inhabited funnel. The Spider on the lookout
at once shows herself on the threshold of her dwelling, half out of her
tube, ready for defence and perhaps also for attack. The Pompilus moves
away and the Segestria reenters her tube. A fresh alarm: the Pompilus
returns; another threatening demonstration on the part of the Spider.
Her neighbour, a little later, does better than this: while the huntress
is prowling about in the neighbourhood of the funnel, she suddenly leaps
out of the tube, with the lifeline which will save her from falling,
should she miss her footing, attached to her spinnerets; she rushes
forward and hurls herself in front of the Pompilus, at a distance
of some eight inches from her burrow. The Wasp, as though terrified,
immediately decamps; and the Segestria no less suddenly retreats
indoors.
Here, we must admit, is a strange quarry: it does not hide, but is eager
to show itself; it does not run away, but flings itself in front of the
hunter. If our observations were to cease here, could we say which of
the two is the hunter and which the hunted? Should we not feel sorry for
the imprudent Pompilus? Let a thread of the trap entangle her leg; and
it is all up with her. The other will be there, stabbing her in the
throat. What then is the method which she employs against the Segestria,
always on the alert, ready for defence, audacious to the point of
aggression? Shall I surprise the reader if I tell him that this problem
filled me with the most eager interest, that it held me for weeks in
contemplation before that cheerless wall? Nevertheless, my tale will be
a short one.
On several occasions I see the Pompilus suddenly fling herself on one of
the Spider's legs, seize it with her mandibles and endeavour to draw the
animal from its tube. It is a sudden rush, a surprise attack, too
quick to permit the Spider to parry it. Fortunately, the latter's two
hind-legs are firmly hooked to the dwelling; and the Segestria escapes
with a jerk, for the other, having delivered her shock attack, hastens
to release her hold; if she persisted, the affair might end badly for
her. Having failed in this assault, the Wasp repeats the procedure
at other funnels; she will even return to the first when the alarm is
somewhat assuaged. Still hopping and fluttering, she prowls around the
mouth, whence the Segestria watches her, with her legs outspread. She
waits for the propitious moment; she leaps forward, seizes a leg, tugs
at it and springs out of reach. More often than not, the Spider holds
fast; sometimes she is dragged out of the tube, to a distance of a few
inches, but immediately returns, no doubt with the aid of her unbroken
lifeline.
The Pompilus' intention is plain: she wants to eject the Spider from her
fortress and fling her some distance away. So much perseverance leads to
success. This time all goes well: with a vigorous and well-timed tug
the Wasp has pulled the Segestria out and at once lets her drop to
the ground. Bewildered by her fall and even more demoralized by being
wrested from her ambush, the Spider is no longer the bold adversary that
she was. She draws her legs together and cowers into a depression in
the soil. The huntress is there on the instant to operate on the evicted
animal. I have barely time to draw near to watch the tragedy when the
victim is paralysed by a thrust of the sting in the thorax.
Here at last, in all its Machiavellian cunning, is the shrewd method
of the Pompilus. She would be risking her life if she attacked the
Segestria in her home; the Wasp is so convinced of it that she takes
good care not to commit this imprudence; but she knows also that, once
dislodged from her dwelling, the Spider is as timid, as cowardly as she
was bold at the centre of her funnel. The whole point of her tactics,
therefore, lies in dislodging the creature. This done, the rest is
nothing.
The Tarantula-huntress must behave in the same manner. Enlightened
by her kinswoman, Pompilus apicalis, my mind pictures her wandering
stealthily around the Lycosa's rampart. The Lycosa hurries up from
the bottom of her burrow, believing that a victim is approaching; she
ascends her vertical tube, spreading her fore-legs outside, ready to
leap. But it is the Ringed Pompilus who leaps, seizes a leg, tugs and
hurls the Lycosa from her burrow. The Spider is henceforth a craven
victim, who will let herself be stabbed without dreaming of employing
her venomous fangs. Here craft triumphs over strength; and this craft is
not inferior to mine, when, wishing to capture the Tarantula, I make her
bite a spike of grass which I dip into the burrow, lead her gently
to the surface and then with a sudden jerk throw her outside. For the
entomologist as for the Pompilus, the essential thing is to make the
Spider leave her stronghold. After this there is no difficulty in
catching her, thanks to the utter bewilderment of the evicted animal.
Two contrasting points impress me in the facts which I have just set
forth: the shrewdness of the Pompilus and the folly of the Spider. I
will admit that the Wasp may gradually have acquired, as being highly
beneficial to her posterity, the instinct by which she first of all so
judiciously drags the victim from its refuge, in order there to paralyse
it without incurring danger, provided that you will explain why the
Segestria, possessing an intellect no less gifted than that of the
Pompilus, does not yet know how to counteract the trick of which she
has so long been the victim. What would the Black Spider need to do to
escape her exterminator? Practically nothing: it would be enough for her
to withdraw into her tube, instead of coming up to post herself at the
entrance, like a sentry, whenever the enemy is in the neighbourhood. It
is very brave of her, I agree, but also very risky. The Pompilus will
pounce upon one of the legs spread outside the burrow for defence
and attack; and the besieged Spider will perish, betrayed by her own
boldness. This posture is excellent when waiting for prey. But the Wasp
is not a quarry; she is an enemy and one of the most dreaded of enemies.
The Spider knows this. At the sight of the Wasp, instead of placing
herself fearlessly but foolishly on her threshold, why does she not
retreat into her fortress, where the other would not attack her? The
accumulated experience of generations should have taught her this
elementary tactical device, which is of the greatest value to the
prosperity of her race. If the Pompilus has perfected her method of
attack, why has not the Segestria perfected her method of defence? Is it
possible that centuries upon centuries should have modified the one
to its advantage without succeeding in modifying the other? Here I am
utterly at a loss. And I say to myself, in all simplicity: since the
Pompili must have Spiders, the former have possessed their patient
cunning and the other their foolish audacity from all time. This may
be puerile, if you like to think it so, and not in keeping with the
transcendental aims of our fashionable theorists; the argument contains
neither the subjective nor the objective point of view, neither
adaptation nor differentiation, neither atavism nor evolutionism. Very
well, but at least I understand it.
Let us return to the habits of Pompilus apicalis. Without expecting
results of any particular interest, for in captivity the respective
talents of the huntress and the quarry seem to slumber, I place
together, in a wide jar, a Wasp and a Segestria. The Spider and her
enemy mutually avoid each other, both being equally timid. A judicious
shake or two brings them into contact. The Segestria, from time to time,
catches hold of the Pompilus, who gathers herself up as best she can,
without attempting to use her sting; the Spider rolls the insect between
her legs and even between her mandibles, but appears to dislike doing
it. Once I see her lie on her back and hold the Pompilus above her,
as far away as possible, while turning her over in her fore-legs
and munching at her with her mandibles. The Wasp, whether by her own
adroitness or owing to the Spider's dread of her, promptly escapes
from the terrible fangs, moves to a short distance and does not seem to
trouble unduly about the buffeting which she has received. She quietly
polishes her wings and curls her antennae by pulling them while standing
on them with her fore-tarsi. The attack of the Segestria, stimulated by
my shakes, is repeated ten times over; and the Pompilus always escapes
from the venomous fangs unscathed, as though she were invulnerable.
Is she really invulnerable? By no means, as we shall soon have proved to
us; if she retires safe and sound, it is because the Spider does not use
her fangs. What we see is a sort of truce, a tacit convention forbidding
deadly strokes, or rather the demoralization due to captivity; and the
two adversaries are no longer in a sufficiently warlike mood to make
play with their daggers. The tranquillity of the Pompilus, who keeps on
jauntily curling her antennae in face of the Segestria, reassures me
as to my prisoner's fate; for greater security, however, I throw her a
scrap of paper, in the folds of which she will find a refuge during
the night. She instals herself there, out of the Spider's reach. Next
morning I find her dead. During the night the Segestria, whose habits
are nocturnal, has recovered her daring and stabbed her enemy. I had
my suspicions that the parts played might be reversed! The butcher of
yesterday is the victim of to-day.
I replace the Pompilus by a Hive-bee. The interview is not protracted.
Two hours later, the Bee is dead, bitten by the Spider. A Drone-fly
suffers the same fate. The Segestria, however, does not touch either of
the two corpses, any more than she touched the corpse of the Pompilus.
In these murders the captive seems to have no other object than to rid
herself of a turbulent neighbour. When appetite awakes, perhaps the
victims will be turned to account. They were not; and the fault was
mine. I placed in the jar a Bumble-bee of average size. A day later the
Spider was dead; the rude sharer of her captivity had done the deed.
Let us say no more of these unequal duels in the glass prison and
complete the story of the Pompilus whom we left at the foot of the wall
with the paralysed Segestria. She abandons her prey on the ground and
returns to the wall. She visits the Spider's funnels one by one, walking
on them as freely as on the stones; she inspects the silken tubes,
dipping her antennae into them, sounding and exploring them; she enters
without the least hesitation. Whence does she now derive the temerity
thus to enter the Segestria's haunts? But a little while ago, she
was displaying extreme caution; at this moment, she seems heedless
of danger. The fact is that there is no danger really. The Wasp is
inspecting uninhabited houses. When she dives down a silken tunnel, she
very well knows that there is no one in, for, had the Segestria been
there, she would by this time have appeared on the threshold. The fact
that the householder does not show herself at the first vibration of the
neighbouring threads is a certain proof that the tube is vacant; and the
Pompilus enters in full security. I would recommend future observers not
to take the present investigations for hunting-tactics. I have already
remarked and I repeat: the Pompilus never enters the silken ambush while
the Spider is there.
Among the funnels inspected one appears to suit her better than
the others; she returns to it frequently in the course of her
investigations, which last for nearly an hour. From time to time she
hastens back to the Spider lying on the ground; she examines her, tugs
at her, drags her a little closer to the wall, then leaves her the
better to reconnoitre the tunnel which is the object of her preference.
Lastly she returns to the Segestria and takes her by the tip of the
abdomen. The quarry is so heavy that she has great difficulty in moving
it along the level ground. Two inches divide it from the wall. She gets
to the wall, not without effort; nevertheless, once the wall is reached,
the job is quickly done. We learn that Antaeus, the son of Mother Earth,
in his struggle with Hercules, received new strength as often as his
feet touched the ground; the Pompilus, the daughter of the wall, seems
to increase her powers tenfold once she has set foot on the masonry.
For here is the Wasp hoisting her prey backwards, her enormous prey,
which dangles beneath her. She climbs now a vertical plane, now a slope,
according to the uneven surface of the stones. She crosses gaps where
she has to go belly uppermost, while the quarry swings to and fro in the
air. Nothing stops her; she keeps on climbing, to a height of six feet
or more, without selecting her path, without seeing her goal, since she
goes backwards. A lodge appears no doubt reconnoitred beforehand and
reached, despite the difficulties of an ascent which did not allow her
to see it. The Pompilus lays her prey on it. The silken tube which she
inspected so lovingly is only some eight inches distant. She goes to it,
examines it rapidly and returns to the Spider, whom she at length lowers
down the tube.
Shortly afterwards I see her come out again. She searches here and
there on the wall for a few scraps of mortar, two or three fairly large
pieces, which she carries to the tube, to close it up. The task is done.
She flies away.
Next day I inspect this strange burrow. The Spider is at the bottom of
the silken tube, isolated on every side, as though in a hammock. The
Wasp's egg is glued not to the ventral surface of the victim but to the
back, about the middle, near the beginning of the abdomen. It is white,
cylindrical and about a twelfth of an inch long. The few bits of mortar
which I saw carried have but very roughly blocked the silken chamber at
the end. Thus Pompilus apicalis lays her quarry and her eggs not in a
burrow of her own making, but in the Spider's actual house. Perhaps the
silken tube belongs to this very victim, which in that event provides
both board and lodging. What a shelter for the larva of this Pompilus:
the warm retreat and downy hammock of the Segestria!
Here then, already, we have two Spider-huntresses, the Ringed Pompilus
and P. apicalis, who, unversed in the miner's craft, establish their
offspring inexpensively in accidental chinks in the walls, or even in
the lair of the Spider on whom the larva feeds. In these cells, acquired
without exertion, they build only an attempt at a wall with a few
fragments of mortar. But we must beware of generalizing about this
expeditious method of establishment. Other Pompili are true diggers,
valiantly sinking a burrow in the soil, to a depth of a couple of
inches. These include the Eight-spotted Pompilus (P. octopunctatus,
PANZ.), with her black-and-yellow livery and her amber wings, a little
darker at the tips. For her game she chooses the Epeirae (E. fasciata,
E. sericea) (For the Garden-spiders known as the Banded Epeira and
the Silky Epeira cf. "The Life of the Spider": chapters 11, 13, 14 et
passim.--Translator's Note.), those fat Spiders, magnificently adorned,
who lie in wait at the centre of their large, vertical webs. I am not
sufficiently acquainted with her habits to describe them; above all, I
know nothing of her hunting-tactics. But her dwelling is familiar to
me: it is a burrow, which I have seen her begin, complete and close
according to the customary method of the Digger-wasps.