too dearly bought. I am not made of the stuff of those who, without
turning a hair, rip up live Dogs to find out nothing in particular.

Nevertheless, I had the courage to start afresh, this time on a Mole
caught ravaging a bed of lettuces. There was a danger lest my captive,
with his famished stomach, should leave things in doubt, if we had to
keep him for a few days. He might die not of his wound, but of
inanition, if I did not succeed in giving him suitable food, fairly
plentiful and dispensed at fairly frequent intervals. In that case, I
ran a risk of ascribing to the poison what might well be the result of
starvation. I must therefore begin by finding out if it was possible for
me to keep the Mole alive in captivity. The animal was put into a large
receptacle from which it could not get out and fed on a varied diet of
insects--Beetles, Grasshoppers, especially Cicadae {15}--which it
crunched up with an excellent appetite. Twenty-four hours of this
regimen convinced me that the Mole was making the best of the bill of
fare and taking kindly to his captivity.

I make the Tarantula bite him at the tip of the snout. When replaced in
his cage, the Mole keeps on scratching his nose with his broad paws. The
thing seems to burn, to itch. Henceforth, less and less of the provision
of Cicadae is consumed; on the evening of the following day, it is
refused altogether. About thirty-six hours after being bitten, the Mole
dies during the night and certainly not from inanition, for there are
still half a dozen live Cicadae in the receptacle, as well as a few
Beetles.

The bite of the Black-bellied Tarantula is therefore dangerous to other
animals than insects: it is fatal to the Sparrow, it is fatal to the
Mole. Up to what point are we to generalize? I do not know, because my