第78章 THE METHOD OF THE CALICURGI(4)

The Tarantula of the Ringed Calicurgus, as I take her from the owner at the moment of transportation, presents the same peculiarities. The poison-fangs are no longer irritable when tickled with my straw: a fresh proof, added to those of analogy, to show that the Lycosa, like the Epeira, has been stung in the mouth. The palpi, on the other hand, are and will be for weeks highly irritable and mobile. I wish to emphasise this point, the importance of which will be recognized presently.

I found it impossible to provoke a second attack from my Harlequin Calicurgus: the tedium of captivity did not favour the exercise of her talents. Moreover, the Epeira sometimes had something to do with her refusals; a certain ruse de guerre which was twice employed before my eyes may well have baffled the aggressor. Let me describe the incident, if only to increase our respect a little for these foolish Spiders, who are provided with perfected weapons and do not dare to make use of them against the weaker but bolder assailant.

The Epeira occupies the wall of the wire-gauze cage, with her eight legs wide-spread upon the trelliswork; the Calicurgus is wheeling round the top of the dome. Seized with panic at the sight of the approaching enemy, the Spider drops to the ground, with her belly upwards and her legs gathered together. The other dashes forward, clasps her round the body, explores her and prepares to sting her in the mouth. But she does not bare her weapon. Isee her bending attentively over the poisoned fangs, as though to investigate their terrible mechanism; she then goes away. The Spider is still motionless, so much so that I really believe her dead, paralysed unknown to me, at a moment when I was not looking. I take her from the cage to examine her comfortably. No sooner is she placed on the table than behold, she comes to life again and promptly scampers off! The cunning creature was shamming death beneath the Wasp's stiletto, so artfully that Iwas taken in. She deceived an enemy more cunning than myself, the Pompilus, who inspected her very closely and took her for a corpse unworthy of her dagger. Perhaps the simple creature, like the Bear in the fable of old, already noticed the smell of high meat.

This ruse, if ruse it be, appears to me more often than not to turn to the disadvantage of the Spider, whether Tarantula, Epeira or another. The Calicurgus who has just put the Spider on her back after a brisk fight knows quite well that her prostrate foe is not dead. The latter, thinking to protect itself, simulates the inertia of a corpse; the assailant profits by this to deliver her most perilous blow, the stab in the mouth. Were the fangs, each tipped with its drop of poison, to open then; were they to snap, to give a desperate bite, the Pompilus would not dare to expose the tip of her abdomen to their deadly scratch. The shamming of death is exactly what enables the huntress to succeed in her dangerous operation.

They say, O guileless Epeirae, that the struggle for life has taught you to adopt this inert attitude for purposes of defence. Well, the struggle for life was a very bad counsellor. Trust rather to common sense and learn, by degrees, at your own cost, that to hit back, above all if you can do so promptly, is still the best way to intimidate the enemy. (Fabre does not believe in the actual shamming of death by animals. Cf. "The Glow-worm and Other Beetles," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 8 to 15.--Translator's Note.)The remainder of my observations on these insects under glass is little more than a long series of failures. Of two operators on Weevils, one, the Sandy Cerceris (C. arenaria), persistently scorned the victims offered; the other, Ferrero's Cerceris (C. Ferreri), allowed herself to be empted after two days' captivity. Her tactical method, as I expected, is precisely that of the Cleonus-huntress, the Great Cerceris, with whom my investigations commenced. When confronted with the Acorn-weevil, she seizes the insect by the snout, which is immensely long and shaped like a pipe-stem, and plants her sting in its body to the rear of the prothorax, between the first and second pair of legs. It is needless to insist: the spoiler of the Cleoni has taught us enough about this mode of operation and its results.