第77章 THE METHOD OF THE CALICURGI(3)

fasciata), the largest Spiders in the district, next to the Tarantula. The first of these spreads her large upright net, in which Locusts are caught, from one clump of brushwood to another. I find her in the copses on the neighbouring hills. The second stretches hers across the ditches and the little streams frequented by the Dragon-flies. I find her near the Aygues, beside the irrigation-canals fed by the torrent. A couple of trips procures me the two Epeirae, whom I offer to my captive next day, both at the same time. It is for her to choose according to her taste.

The choice is soon made: the Banded Epeira is the one preferred. But she does not yield without protest. On the approach of the Wasp, she rises and assumes a defensive attitude, just like that of the Lycosa. The Calicurgus pays no attention to threats: under her harlequin's coat, she is violent in attack and quick on her legs. There is a rapid exchange of fisticuffs; and the Epeira lies overturned on her back. The Pompilus is on top of her, belly to belly, head to head; with her legs she masters the Spider's legs;with her mandibles she grips the cephalothorax. She curves her abdomen, bringing the tip of it beneath her; she draws her sting and...

One moment, reader, if you please. Where is the sting about to strike? From what we have learnt from the other paralysers, it will be driven into the breast, to suppress the movement of the legs. That is your opinion; it was also mine. Well, without blushing too deeply at our common and very excusable error, let us confess that the insect knows better than we do. It knows how to assure success by a preparatory manoeuvre of which you and Ihad never dreamt. Ah, what a school is that of the animals! Is it not true that, before striking the adversary, you should take care not to get wounded yourself? The Harlequin Pompilus does not disregard this counsel of prudence. The Epeira carries beneath her throat two sharp daggers, with a drop of poison at their points; the Calicurgus is lost if the Spider bites her. Nevertheless, her anaesthetizing demands perfect steadiness of the lancet. What is to be done in the face of this danger which might disconcert the most practised surgeon? The patient must first be disarmed and then operated on.

And in fact the Calicurgus' sting, aimed from back to front, is driven into the Epeira's mouth, with minute precautions and marked persistency. On the instant, the poison-fangs close lifelessly and the formidable quarry is powerless to harm. The Wasp's abdomen then extends its arc and drives the needle behind the fourth pair of legs, on the median line, almost at the junction of the belly and the cephalothorax. At this point the skin is finer and more easily penetrable than elsewhere. The remainder of the thoracic surface is covered with a tough breast-plate which the sting would perhaps fail to perforate. The nerve-centres, the source of the leg-movements, are situated a little above the wounded point, but the back-to-front direction of the sting makes it possible to reach them. This last wound results in the paralysis of all the eight legs at once.

To enlarge upon it further would detract from the eloquence of this performance. First of all, to safeguard the operator, a stab in the mouth, that point so terribly armed, the most formidable of all; then, to safeguard the larva, a second stab in the nerve-centres of the thorax, to suppress the power of movement. I certainly suspected that the slayers of robust Spiders were endowed with special talents; but I was far from expecting their bold logic, which disarms before it paralyses. So the Tarantula-huntress must behave, who, under my bell-glasses, refused to surrender her secret. I now know what her method is; it has been divulged by a colleague. She throws the terrible Lycosa upon her back, pricks her prickers by stinging her in the mouth and then, in comfort, with a single thrust of the lancet, obtains paralysis of the legs.

I examine the Epeira immediately after the operation and the Tarantula when the Calicurgus is dragging her by one leg to her burrow, at the foot of some wall. For a little while longer, a minute at most, the Epeira convulsively moves her legs. So long as these throes continue, the Pompilus does not release her prey. She seems to watch the progress of the paralysis. With the tips of her mandibles she explores the Spider's mouth several times over, as though to ascertain if the poison-fangs are really innocuous. When all movement subsides, the Pompilus makes ready to drag her prey elsewhere. It is then I take charge of it.

What strikes me more than anything else is the absolute inertia of the fangs, which I tickle with a straw without succeeding in rousing them from their torpor. The palpi, on the other hand, their immediate neighbours, wave at the least touch. The Epeira is placed in safety, in a flask, and undergoes a fresh examination a week later. Irritability has in part returned. Under the stimulus of a straw, I see her legs move a little, especially the lower joints, the tibiae and tarsi. The palpi are even more irritable and mobile. These different movements, however, are lacking in vigour and coordination; and the Spider cannot employ them to turn over, much less to escape. As for the poison-fangs, I stimulate them in vain: Icannot get them to open or even to stir. They are therefore profoundly paralysed and in a special manner. The peculiar insistence of the sting when the mouth was stabbed told me as much in the beginning.

At the end of September, almost a month after the operation, the Epeira is in the same condition, neither dead nor alive: the palpi still quiver when touched with a straw, but nothing else moves. At length, after six or seven weeks' lethargy, real death supervenes, together with its comrade, putrefaction.