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