It ceased to feed as Spinipes appeared, and rested motionless, until her weight made its leaf-platform shiver. Then it dropped silently to earth. But Spinipes reached earth almost as fast, and, quartering every inch of ground, found it and gripped it tightly. It struggled feebly as she pinned it down, and, as she stung it, shuddered. The sting was measured to the millionth part. It robbed the grub of sentient life, yet left it living. So Nature had enjoined. For every infant Spinipes, a score of live green grubs. Robbed of full life, lest struggling they should harm the egg; forbidden death, lest dying they should taint the shaft; lulled to long sleep in mercy. Of Nature's ordinance the grub knew nothing—and Spinipes knew nothing. Her task was to make store of food against the time when her gold egg should hatch. Instinctively she knew the grub was food: instinctively she paralysed its being: instinctively she laboured to transport it.
Her jaws were fastened tight behind its head. Slowly she dragged it up a stalk until blue sky alone was over her. Then, loosing her mouth-grip of it, and clasping it with all six legs, she soared on high; one long unbroken down-glide brought her to her tower. An instant's pause to shift her grip, and she had pushed the grub within the entrance. Keeping a foot-hold on it, she eased it gently downwards, until it lay beneath her egg. She turned it over on its back and propped it to the side wall, caressed her egg, and mounted to the light again.
Back to the lucerne field she flew, and, in ten minutes, reappeared, a second grub beneath her.
This, too, she propped up carefully, and so she worked throughout the day, hunting, benumbing, storing. Twelve grubs in all she brought. All twelve she packed into a single pile. A few made feeble movements, and these, for prudence' sake, she stung afresh.
She passed the night contentedly, for it had been good hunting.
An instant's pause to shift her grip, and she had pushed the grub within the entrance.
"Take that—and that—and that," said Spinipes, and drove her sharp sting home.