I have often watched Pompili of every species on their hunting-expeditions, but I have never surprised them entering the Spider's lodging when the latter was at home. Whether this lodging be a funnel plunging its neck into a hole in some wall, an awning stretched amid the stubble, a tent modelled upon the Arab's, a sheath formed of a few leaves bound together, or a net with a guard-room attached, whenever the owner is indoors the suspicious Pompilus holds aloof. When the dwelling is vacant, it is another matter: the Wasp moves with arrogant ease over those webs, springes and cables in which so many other insects would remain ensnared. The silken threads do not seem to have any hold upon her. What is she doing, exploring those empty webs? She is watching to see what is happening on the adjacent webs where the Spider is ambushed. The Pompilus therefore feels an insuperable reluctance to make straight for the Spider when the latter is at home in the midst of her snares. And she is right, a hundred times over. If the Tarantula understands the practice of the dagger-thrust in the neck, which is immediately fatal, the other cannot be unacquainted with it. Woe then to the imprudent Wasp who presents herself upon the threshold of a Spider of approximately equal strength! Of the various instances which I have collected of this cautious reserve on the Spider-huntress' part I will confine myself to the following, which will be sufficient to prove my point. By joining, with silken strands, the three folioles which form the leaf of Virgil's cytisus, a Spider has built herself a green arbour, a horizontal sheath, open at either end. A questing Pompilus comes upon the scene, finds the game to her liking and pops in her head at the entrance of the cell. The Spider immediately retreats to the other end. The huntress goes round the Spider's dwelling and reappears at the other door. Again the Spider retreats, returning to the first entrance. The Wasp also returns to it, but always by the outside. Scarcely has she done so, when the Spider rushes for the opposite opening; and so on for fully a quarter of an hour, both of them coming and going from one end of the cylinder to the other, the Spider inside and the Pompilus outside.