On the kitchen-ceiling and on the rafters of the granary this Spider is her near neighbour: the silken lair stretches in close proximity to the earthen nest. Instead of expeditions in the neighbourhood, a little patrolling of the actual premises where she has settled down would provide the Pelopæus with abundant sport, for there is game swarming at her very door. Why does she not profit by this plenty? The dish is not to her liking; and it would be very difficult to tell the reason why. The fact remains that, in all my stock-taking of victuals, I have never found the House Spider among the provisions, although the species, if captured young, would seem to fulfil the required conditions. This disdain is a pity both for our sake and for the Pelopæus’; for ours, in the first place, because we should otherwise possess, inside our dwellings, an inspector of ceilings whose duty it would be to exterminate the spinners of cobwebs that cause the housewives such trouble; next, for the sake of the Pelopæus, who, once inscribed on the hallowed roll of useful insects, would enjoy an established reputation and receive a friendly welcome in the farm-house, instead of being driven out when too lavish with her mud. The Spider, armed with poison-fangs, is a dangerous quarry to tackle; when of fair size, she demands of her adversary an audacity and above all a tactical skill which the Pelopæus, it seems to me, does not fully possess. Moreover, the small diameter of the cells would not admit a bulky prey, such as the Tarantula hunted by the Ringed Calicurgus. [40] The Calicurgus deposits her corpulent victim in a cavern obtained without labour in the old plaster at the foot of a wall; the Pelopæus places hers in a jar, a laborious construction whose capacity has to be reduced to suit the larva. The Pelopæus, therefore, hunts game of moderate size, smaller than one would at first expect from the insect’s vigorous appearance. If she encounters a species that is apt to become plump, she always selects a young one. This happens in the case of the Cross Spider, who, when full-grown, with her belly swollen with eggs, almost rivals the Calicurgus’ Tarantula and who is admitted to the provision-jar only when of niggardly dimensions, very different from those which maturity will bring. For the rest, the size varies, between one specimen and another, by a hundred per cent and more. The essential point is that the quarry can be stored in the narrow jar. This variation in the size of the items provided leads to corresponding variations in their number. One cell is stuffed with a dozen Spiders; another contains only five or six. The average number is eight. The nurseling’s sex must of a surety play its part, as with the other Wasps, in regulating the luxuries of the table.