The Life of the Spider
guided by the position of the web, they will assuredly find the precious purse; and a strange grub, feasting on a hundred new-laid eggs, will ruin the establishment. I do not know these enemies, not having sufficient materials at my disposal for a register of the parasites; but, from indications gathered elsewhere, I suspect them.
The Banded Epeira, trusting to the strength of her stuff, fixes her nest in the sight of all, hangs it on the brushwood, taking no precautions whatever to hide it. And a bad business it proves for her. Her jar provides me with an Ichneumon[1] possessed of the inoculating larding-pin: a Cryptus who, as a grub, had fed on Spiders' eggs. Nothing but empty shells was left inside the central keg; the germs were completely exterminated. There are other Ichneumon-flies, moreover, addicted to robbing Spiders' nests; a basket of fresh eggs is their offspring's regular food.
Like any other, the Labyrinth Spider
- ↑ The Ichneumon-flies are very small insects which carry long ovipositors, wherewith they lay their eggs in the eggs of other insects and also, more especially, in caterpillars. Their parasitic larvæ live and develop at the expense of the egg or grub attacked, which degenerates in consequence.—Translator's Note.
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