Spider and Fly

I noticed a spider’s thread glistening in the light across the window. The daylight picked out the thread. It did not appear part of a web, though it could have been in the process of being made. Now I see, the web is a poor thing, and the spider looks like an ordinary garden spider with stripy legs. The design may look bad to me, but is clearly effective. For while I watch, a fly has become entangled in the line and the spider hurried across and has snatched at his prey and bound it over and over again, until it ceased struggling and is no more than a white-shrouded victim. The spider then retired to the side of his web and sat there. A second insect was quickly trapped and dealt with in the same manner as the first. The spider moved him to the edge of the web, then went back to the first victim and brought him to the same spot as the second one, and appears to be, while holding it with his front legs, sucking dry the second victim. One insect less for the bats, three types of which fly over the garden at night. The spider now satiated sits fatly on the side of his web.