With a piece of game for a bait, I hope to bring her down from her lofty retreat.
I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who struggles desperately and sets the whole net a-shaking.

The other, up above, leaves her lurking-place amid the cypress-foliage, strides swiftly down along her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and at once climbs home again by the same road, with her prize dangling at her heels by a thread.

The final sacrifice will take place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary.
A few days later I renew my experiment under the same conditions, but, this time, I first cut the signalling-thread.

In vain I select a large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; in vain I exert my patience: the Spider does not come down all day.

Her telegraph being broken, she receives no notice of what is happening nine feet below.