Let us try, nevertheless: even when poorly clad, truth is still beautiful.
The most robust Spider in my district is the Narbonne Lycosa, or Black-bellied Tarantula, clad in black velvet on the lower surface, especially under the belly, with brown chevrons on the abdomen and grey and white rings around the legs.

Her favourite home is the dry, pebbly ground, covered with sun-scorched thyme.

In my harmas laboratory there are quite twenty of this Spider's burrows.

Rarely do I pass by one of these haunts without giving a glance down the pit where gleam, like diamonds, the four great eyes, the four telescopes, of the hermit.

The four others, which are much smaller, are not visible at that depth.
Would I have greater riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from my house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day a dreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from stone to stone.