I have seen even better than that.  This time, my subject is the Silky Epeira (Epeira sericea, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned, silvery abdomen.  Like that of the other, her web is large, upright and ‘signed’ with a zigzag ribbon.  I place upon it a Praying Mantis, {18} a well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing roles, should circumstances permit, and herself making a meal off her assailant.  It is a question no longer of capturing a peaceful Locust, but a fierce and powerful ogre, who would rip open the Epeira’s paunch with one blow of her harpoons.

Will the Spider dare?  Not immediately.  Motionless in the centre of her net, she consults her strength before attacking the formidable quarry; she waits until the struggling prey has its claws more thickly entangled.  At last, she approaches.  The Mantis curls her belly; lifts her wings like vertical sails; opens her saw-toothed arm-pieces; in short, adopts the spectral attitude which she employs when delivering battle.

The Spider disregards these menaces.  Spreading wide her spinnerets, she pumps out sheets of silk which the hind-legs draw out, expand and fling without stint in alternate armfuls.  Under this shower of threads, the Mantis’ terrible saws, the lethal legs, quickly disappear from sight, as do the wings, still erected in the spectral posture.

Meanwhile, the swathed one gives sudden jerks, which make the Spider fall out of her web.  The accident is provided for.  A safety-cord, emitted at the same instant by the spinnerets, keeps the Epeira hanging, swinging in space.  When calm is restored, she packs her cord and climbs up again.  The heavy paunch and the hind-legs are now bound.  The flow slackens, the silk comes only in thin sheets.  Fortunately, the business is done.  The prey is invisible under the thick shroud.

The Spider retires without giving a bite.  To master the terrible quarry, she has spent the whole reserves of her spinning-mill, enough to weave many good-sized webs.  With this heap of shackles, further precautions are superfluous.

After a short rest in the centre of the net, she comes down to dinner.  Slight incisions are made in different parts of the prize, now here, now there; and the Spider puts her mouth to each and sucks the blood of her prey.  The meal is long protracted, so rich is the dish.  For ten hours, I watch the insatiable glutton, who changes her point of attack as each wound sucked dries up.  Night comes and robs me of the finish of the unbridled debauch.  Next morning, the drained Mantis lies upon the ground.  The Ants are eagerly devouring the remains.

The eminent talents of the Epeirae are displayed to even better purpose in the industrial business of motherhood than in the art of the chase.  The silk bag, the nest, in which the Banded Epeira houses her eggs, is a much greater marvel than the bird’s nest.  In shape, it is an inverted balloon, nearly the size of a Pigeon’s egg.  The top tapers like a pear and is cut short and crowned with a scalloped rim, the corners of which are lengthened by means of moorings that fasten the object to the adjoining twigs.  The whole, a graceful ovoid, hangs straight down, amid a few threads that steady it.