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