Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/220

 a model of devotion where her family is concerned.

The ogre loved his children; he ate the children of others. Under the tyranny of the stomach, we are all of us, beasts and men alike, ogres. The dignity of labour, the joy of life, maternal affection, the terrors of death: all these do not count, in others; the main point is that the morsel be tender and savoury.

According to the etymology of her name—, a cord—the Thomisus should be like the ancient lictor, who bound the sufferer to the stake. The comparison is not inappropriate as regards many Spiders who tie their prey with a thread to subdue it and consume it at their ease; but it just happens that the Thomisus is at variance with her label. She does not fasten her Bee, who, dying suddenly of a bite in the neck, offers no resistance to her consumer. Carried away by his recollection of the regular tactics, our Spider's godfather overlooked the exception; he did not know of the perfidious mode of attack which renders the use of a bowstring superfluous.

Nor is the second name of onustus—loaded, burdened, freighted—any too happily chosen.