The ogre loved his children; he ate the children of others.  Under the tyranny of the stomach, we are all of us, beasts and men alike, ogres.  The dignity of labour, the joy of life, maternal affection, the terrors of death:  all these do not count, in others; the main point is that morsel the be tender and savoury.

According to the etymology of her name—­[Greek text], a cord—­the Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer to the stake.  The comparison is not inappropriate as regards many Spiders who tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume it at their ease; but it just happens that the Thomisus is at variance with her label.  She does not fasten her Bee, who, dying suddenly of a bite in the neck, offers no resistance to her consumer.  Carried away by his recollection of the regular tactics, our Spider’s godfather overlooked the exception; he did not know of the perfidious mode of attack which renders the use of a bow-string superfluous.

Nor is the second name of onustus—­loaded, burdened, freighted—­any too happily chosen.  The fact that the Bee-huntress carries a heavy paunch is no reason to refer to this as a distinctive characteristic.  Nearly all Spiders have a voluminous belly, a silk-warehouse where, in some cases, the rigging of the net, in others, the swan’s-down of the nest is manufactured.  The Thomisus, a first-class nest-builder, does like the rest:  she hoards in her abdomen, but without undue display of obesity, the wherewithal to house her family snugly.

Can the expression onustus refer simply to her slow and sidelong walk?  The explanation appeals to me, without satisfying me fully.  Except in the case of a sudden alarm, every Spider maintains a sober gait and a wary pace.  When all is said, the scientific term is composed of a misconception and a worthless epithet.  How difficult it is to name animals rationally!  Let us be indulgent to the nomenclator:  the dictionary is becoming exhausted and the constant flood that requires cataloguing mounts incessantly, wearing out our combinations of syllables.

As the technical name tells the reader nothing, how shall he be informed?  I see but one means, which is to invite him to the May festivals, in the waste-lands of the South.  The murderess of the Bees is of a chilly constitution; in our parts, she hardly ever moves away from the olive-districts.  Her favourite shrub is the white-leaved rock-rose (Cistus albidus), with the large, pink, crumpled, ephemeral blooms that last but a morning and are replaced, next day, by fresh flowers, which have blossomed in the cool dawn.  This glorious efflorescence goes on for five or six weeks.

Here, the Bees plunder enthusiastically, fussing and bustling in the spacious whorl of the stamens, which beflour them with yellow.  Their persecutrix knows of this affluence.  She posts herself in her watch-house, under the rosy screen of a petal.  Cast your eyes over the flower, more or less everywhere.  If you see a Bee lying lifeless, with legs and tongue out-stretched, draw nearer:  the Thomisus will be there, nine times out of ten.  The thug has struck her blow; she is draining the blood of the departed.