Looking like one insect, they spin rapidly round for a few moments, then
up springs the wasp--victorious. The wretched victim is not dead; its
legs move a little, but its soft body is paralyzed, and lies collapsed,
flabby, and powerless as a stranded jellyfish. And this is the
invariable result of every such conflict. In other classes of beings,
even the weakest hunted thing occasionally succeeds in inflicting pain
on its persecutor, and the small trembling mouse, unable to save itself,
can sometimes make the cat shriek with paiu; but there is no weak spot
in the wasp's armour, no fatal error of judgment, not even an accident,
ever to save the wretched victim from its fate. And now comes the most
iniquitous part of the proceeding. When the wasp has sufficiently rested
after the struggle, it deliberately drags the disabled spider back into
its own hole, and, having packed it away at the extremity, lays an egg
alongside of it, then, coming out again, gathers dust and rubbish with
which it fills up and obliterates the hole; and, having thus concluded
its Machiavellian task, it flies cheerfully off in quest of another
victim.
The extensive Epeira family supply the mason-wasps and other
spider-killers with the majority of their victims. These spiders have
soft, plump, succulent bodies like pats of butter; they inhabit trees
and bushes chiefly, where their geometric webs-betray their whereabouts;
they are timid, comparatively innocuous, and reluctant to quit the
shelter of their green bower, made of a rolled-up leaf; so that there
are many reasons why they should be persecuted.
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