The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: ease. With an increased expenditure of the spinnerets, the very
biggest game is mastered as successfully as the everyday prey.
I have seen even better than that. This time, my subject is the
Silky Epeira (Epeira sericea, OLIV.), with a broad, festooned,
silvery abdomen. Like that of the other, her web is large, upright
and 'signed' with a zigzag ribbon. I place upon it a Praying
Mantis, {18} a well-developed specimen, quite capable of changing
roles, should circumstances permit, and herself making a meal off
her assailant. It is a question no longer of capturing a peaceful
Locust, but a fierce and powerful ogre, who would rip open the
Epeira's paunch with one blow of her harpoons.
The Life of the Spider |