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