As there are more of the sham pills of cork, these are the most often seized by the Spider.
This obtuseness baffles me.

Can the animal be deceived by the soft contact of the cork?
I replace the cork balls by pellets of cotton or paper, kept in their round shape with a few bands of thread.

Both are very readily accepted instead of the real bag that has been removed.
Can the illusion be due to the colouring, which is light in the cork and not unlike the tint of the silk globe when soiled with a little earth, while it is white in the paper and the cotton, when it is identical with that of the original pill?
I give the Lycosa, in exchange for her work, a pellet of silk thread, chosen of a fine red, the brightest of all colours.

The uncommon pill is as readily accepted and as jealously guarded as the others.
THE FAMILY.
For three weeks and more the Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hanging to her spinnerets.

The reader will remember the experiments described in the preceding section, particularly those with the cork ball and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts in exchange for the real pill.