Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/18

The Life of the Spider For two whole months, they remain cloistered; and, with their paunches proportionately hollowing out the inexhaustible sphere, definite archetypes and sovereign symbols of the pleasures of the table and the gaiety of the belly, they eat without stopping, without interrupting themselves for a second, day or night. And, while they gorge, steadily, with a movement perceptible and constant as that of a clock, at the rate of three millimetres a minute, an endless, unbroken ribbon unwinds and stretches itself behind them, fixing the memory and recording the hours, days and weeks of the prodigious feast.

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After the Dung-beetle, that dolt of the company, let us greet, also in the order of the Coleoptera, the model household of the Minotaurus typhæus, which is pretty well-known and extremely gentle, in spite of its dreadful name. The female digs a huge burrow which is often more than a yard and a half deep and which consists of spiral staircases, landings, passages and numerous chambers. 14