The Life of the Spider
seemed to me 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.
Neverthelss, 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 Cicadæ[1]—which it crunched up with an excellent appetite. Twenty-four hours of this regimen convinced me that the Mole was
- ↑ The Cicada is the Cigale, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the South of France.—Translator's Note.
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