I started examining the fennel branches very closely, separating the fronds to get a look everywhere, and noticed a small brown blob hunkered down on a stem. Looking more closely, I saw a rascally little varmint just like the one shown below, only with a guiltier look on his face. Or anyway I assume it was one of these guys, as the egg-napping stopped when I relocated the arachno-monster to the great out-of-doors.

To get a better picture of the one shown above, I brought him into the photo studio. He obligingly hopped off the fennel and onto the support towel, and is shown posing below. He was returned to the wild shortly thereafter.

I am beginning to suspect that spiders are, in general, not interested in making friends with the swallowtail family. Well, perhaps the "swallow" part only. I say this because I recently also found a very tiny indoor spider wrapping its silk around a weakly struggling small black swallowtail caterpillar. I was unable to rescue the caterpillar in time. 

So, the General Advice: keep your eggs and caterpillars in a Spider-Free Zone.

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