artifices, her methods of killing her prey: these constitute my subject.
I will preface it with an account by Leon Dufour, {2} one of those
accounts in which I used to delight and which did much to bring me into
closer touch with the insect. The Wizard of the Landes tells us of the
ordinary Tarantula, that of the Calabrias, observed by him in Spain:

'_Lycosa tarantula_ by preference inhabits open places, dry, arid,
uncultivated places, exposed to the sun. She lives generally--at
least when full-grown--in underground passages, regular burrows, which
she digs for herself. These burrows are cylindrical; they are often
an inch in diameter and run into the ground to a depth of more than a
foot; but they are not perpendicular. The inhabitant of this gut
proves that she is at the same time a skilful hunter and an able
engineer. It was a question for her not only of constructing a deep
retreat that could hide her from the pursuit of her foes: she also had
to set up her observatory whence to watch for her prey and dart out
upon it. The Tarantula provides for every contingency: the
underground passage, in fact, begins by being vertical, but, at four
or five inches from the surface, it bends at an obtuse angle, forms a
horizontal turning and then becomes perpendicular once more. It is at
the elbow of this tunnel that the Tarantula posts herself as a
vigilant sentry and does not for a moment lose sight of the door of
her dwelling; it was there that, at the period when I was hunting her,
I used to see those eyes gleaming like diamonds, bright as a cat's
eyes in the dark.

'The outer orifice of the Tarantula's burrow is usually surmounted by
a shaft constructed throughout by herself. It is a genuine work of
architecture, standing as much as an inch above the ground and
sometimes two inches in diameter, so that it is wider than the burrow