I am all eyes. What a tragedy there will be in a moment! I wait, anxiously... But... but... what is this? Which of the two is the assailed? Which is the assailant? The characters seem to be inverted. The Calicurgus, unable to climb up the smooth glass wall, strides round the ring of the circus. With a proud and rapid gait, her wings and antennae vibrating, she goes and returns. The Lycosa is soon seen. The Calicurgus approaches her without the least sign of fear, walks round her and appears to have the intention of seizing one of her legs. But at that moment the Tarantula rises almost vertically on her four hinder legs, with her four front legs lifted and outspread, ready for the counterstroke. The poison-fangs gape widely; a drop of venom moistens their tips. The very sight of them makes my flesh creep. In this terrible attitude, presenting her powerful thorax and the black velvet of her belly to the enemy, the Spider overawes the Pompilus, who suddenly turns tail and moves away. The Lycosa then closes her bundle of poisoned daggers and resumes her natural pose, standing on her eight legs; but, at the slightest attempt at aggression on the Wasp's part, she resumes her threatening position.
She does more: suddenly she leaps and flings herself upon the Calicurgus; swiftly she clasps her and nibbles at her with her fangs. Without wielding her sting in self-defence, the other disengages herself and merges unscathed from the angry encounter. Several times in succession I witness the attack; and nothing serious ever befalls the Wasp, who swiftly withdraws from the fray and appears to have received no hurt. She resumes her marching and countermarching no less boldly and swiftly than before.
Is this Wasp invulnerable, that she thus escapes from the terrible fangs? Evidently not. A real bite would be fatal to her. Big, sturdily built Acridians succumb (Locusts and Grasshoppers.—Translator's Note.); how is it that she, with her delicate organism, does not! The Spider's daggers, therefore, make no more than an idle feint; their points do not enter the flesh of the tight-clasped Wasp. If the strokes were real, I should see bleeding wounds, I should see the fangs close for a moment on the part seized; and with all my attention I cannot detect anything of the kind. Then are the fangs powerless to pierce the Wasp's integuments? Not so. I have seen them penetrate, with a crackling of broken armour, the corselet of the Acridians, which offers a far greater resistance. Once again, whence comes this strange immunity of the Calicurgus held between the legs and assailed by the daggers of the Tarantula? I do not know. Though in mortal peril from the enemy confronting her, the Lycosa threatens her with her fangs and cannot decide to bite, owing to a repugnance which I do not undertake to explain.
Obtaining nothing more than alarums and excursions of no great seriousness, I think of modifying the gladiatorial arena and approximating it to natural conditions. The soil is very imperfectly represented by my work-table; and the Spider has not her fortress, her burrow, which plays a part of some importance both in attack and in defence. A short length of reed is planted perpendicularly in a large earthenware pan filled with sand. This will be the Lycosa's burrow. In the middle I stick some heads of globe-thistle garnished with honey as a refectory for the Pompilus; a couple of Locusts, renewed as and when consumed, will sustain the Tarantula. These comfortable quarters, exposed to the sun, receive the two captives under a wire-gauze dome, which provides adequate ventilation for a prolonged residence.
My artifices come to nothing; the session closes without result. A day passes, two days, three; still nothing happens. The Pompilus is assiduous in her visits to the honeyed flower-clusters; when she has eaten her fill, she clambers up the dome and makes interminable circuits of the netting; the Tarantula quietly munches her Locust. If the other passes within reach, she swiftly raises herself and waves her off. The artificial burrow, the reed-stump, fulfills its purpose excellently. The Lycosa and the Pompilus resort to it in turns, but without quarrelling. And that is all. The drama whose prologue was so full of promise appears to be indefinitely postponed.
I have a last resource, on which I base great hopes: it is to remove my two Calicurgi to the very site of their investigations and to install them at the door of the Spider's lodging, at the top of the natural burrow. I take the field with an equipment which I am carrying across the country for the first time: a glass bell-jar, a wire-gauze cover and the various implements needed for handling and transferring my irascible and dangerous subjects. My search for burrows among the pebbles and the tufts of thyme and lavender is soon successful.
Here is a splendid one. I learn by inserting a straw that it is inhabited by a Tarantula of a size suited to my plans. The soil around the aperture is cleared and flattened to receive the wire-gauze, under which I place a Pompilus. This is the time to light a pipe and wait, lying on the pebbles...Yet another disappointment. Half an hour goes by; and the Wasp confines herself to travelling round and round the netting as she did in my study. She gives no sign of greed when confronted with the burrow, though I can see the Tarantula's diamond eyes glittering at the bottom.
The trellised wall is replaced by the glass wall, which, since it does not allow her to scale its heights, will oblige the Wasp to remain on the ground and at last to take cognizance of the shaft, which she seems to ignore. This time we have done the trick!
After a few circuits of her cage, the Calicurgus notices the pit yawning at her feet. She goes down it. This daring confounds me. I should never have ventured to anticipate as much. That she should suddenly fling herself upon the Tarantula when the latter is outside her stronghold, well and good; but to rush into the lair, when the terrible monster is waiting for you below with those two poisoned daggers of hers! What will come of such temerity? A buzzing of wings ascends from the depths. Run to earth in her private apartments, the Lycosa is no doubt at grips with the intruder. That hum of wings is the Calicurgus' paean of triumph, until it be her death-song. The slayer may well be the slain. Which of the two will come up alive?
It is the Lycosa, who hurriedly scampers out and posts herself just over the orifice of the burrow, in her posture of defence, her fangs open, her four front legs uplifted. Can the other have been stabbed? Not at all, for she emerges in her turn, not without receiving on the way a cuff from the Spider, who immediately regains her lair. Dislodged from her basement a second and yet a third time, the Tarantula always comes up unwounded; she always awaits her adversary on her threshold, administers punishment and reenters her dwelling. In vain do I try my two Pompili alternately and change the burrow; I do not succeed in observing anything else. Certain conditions not realized by my stratagems are lacking to complete the tragedy.