Still holding her prey by the nape of the neck, the Thomisus feasts not on the body, which remains intact, but on the blood, which is slowly sucked. When the neck is drained dry, another spot is attacked, on the abdomen, [[133]]the thorax, anywhere. This explains why my observations in the open air showed me the Thomisus with her fangs fixed now in the neck, now in some other part of the Bee. In the first case, the capture was a recent one and the murderess still retained her original posture; in the second case, it had been made some time before; and the Spider had forsaken the wound in the head, now sucked dry, to bite into some other juicy part, no matter which.
Thus shifting her fangs, a trifle this way or that, as she drains her prey, the little ogress gorges on her victim’s blood with voluptuous deliberation. I have seen the meal last for seven consecutive hours; and even then the prey was let go only because of the shock given to its devourer by my indiscreet examination. The abandoned corpse, a carcass of no value to the Spider, is not dismembered in any way. There is not a trace of bitten flesh, not a wound that shows. The Bee is drained of her blood; and that is all.
My friend Bull, when he was alive, used to catch an enemy whose teeth threatened danger by the skin of the neck. His method is in general use throughout the canine race. [[134]]There, in front of you, is a growling pair of jaws, open, white with foam, ready to bite. The most elementary prudence advises you to keep them quiet by catching hold of the back of the neck.
In her fight with the Bee, the Spider has not the same object. What has she to fear from her victim? The sting before all things, the terrible dart whose least stab would destroy her. And yet she does not trouble about it. What she makes for is the back of the neck, that alone and never anything else, so long as the prey remains alive. In so doing she does not aim at copying the tactics of the Dog and depriving the head, which is not particularly dangerous, of its power of movement. Her plan is farther-reaching and is revealed to us by the lightning death of the Bee. The neck is no sooner gripped than the victim expires. The cerebral centres therefore are injured, poisoned with a deadly virus; and life is straightway extinguished at its very seat. This avoids a struggle which, if prolonged, would certainly end in the aggressor’s discomfiture. The Bee has her strength and her sting on her side; the delicate Thomisus has on hers a profound knowledge of the art of murder. [[135]]
Let us return to the Mantis, who likewise has mastered the first principles of speedy and scientific killing, in which the little Bee-slaughtering Spider excels. A sturdy Locust is captured; sometimes a powerful Grasshopper. The Mantis naturally wants to devour the victuals in peace, without being troubled by the plunges of a victim who absolutely refuses to be devoured. A meal liable to interruptions lacks savour. Now the principal means of defence in this case are the hind-legs, those vigorous levers which can kick out so brutally and which moreover are armed with toothed saws that would rip open the Mantis’ bulky paunch if by ill-luck they happen to graze it. What shall we do to reduce them to helplessness, together with the others, which are not dangerous but troublesome all the same, with their desperate gesticulations?
Strictly speaking, it would be practicable to cut them off one by one. But that is a long process and attended with a certain risk. The Mantis has hit upon something better. She has an intimate knowledge of the anatomy of the spine. By first attacking her prize at the back of the half-opened neck and munching the cervical ganglia, she destroys [[136]]the muscular energy at its main seat; and inertia supervenes, not suddenly and completely, for the clumsily-constructed Locust has not the Bee’s exquisite and frail vitality, but still sufficiently, after the first mouthfuls. Soon the kicking and the gesticulating die down, all movement ceases and the game, however big it be, is consumed in perfect quiet.
Among the hunters, I have before now drawn a distinction between those who paralyse and those who kill.[4] Both terrify one with their anatomical knowledge. To-day let us add to the killers the Thomisus, that expert in stabbing in the neck, and the Mantis, who, to devour a powerful prey at her ease, deprives it of movement by first gnawing its cervical ganglia. [[137]]
[1] The Decticus, Tryxalis and Ephippiger are all species of Grasshoppers or Locusts.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Epeira sericea and E. diadema are two Garden Spiders for whom cf. The Life of the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ix to xiv.—Translator’s Note. [↑]