Death by Silk

Not for the faint hearted....

Caspar and I are just returning from a little stroll down the lane and as we approach the steps we notice (well, I notice, - Caspar is blind) that there is some rather nefarious activity going on around the rain spout at the bottom of the steps.

I slip Caspar into the house, grab the camera and come back out to watch the action.

Here is the villain, - a big orange spider who I think might be a Kittalog, or some kind of

 an Orb spider.

You will note that he is busy at his work, - blowing out silk and  reeling out a line with which he intends to secure his victim.  He has already caught one of the frightened grasshopper's front feet making it difficult for him to do anything except squirm and pull, trying to escape.

The spider beats his chest a bit and does a kind of war dance that closely resembles a Haka, I think.

The battles begins in earnest.....terribly one-sided I must admit

My sympathies are with the poor carefree grasshopper who never in a million minutes while he rubbed his legs together, making merry music, dreamed that such a fate awaited him.  Things have reached a stage where even if I were to deprive the spider of lunch 

the grasshopper will not live to sing again.

I leave the big orange spider victorious, and go in to make lunch.  When I look again there is only the husk of the erstwhile idler to remind me of the carefree summer days he whiled away the hours, all the time thinking it was the ant that was putting him to shame when really it was the big orange spider that was planning his downfall.

A sad tale, but there, it's only Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Here endeth the biology lesson for the day, with a Requiem for the Grasshopper.

O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear

of some well-filled oaten beard,

Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear

Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;

And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire

To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plats of his beams,

And all these merry days mak'st merry men,

Thyself, and melancholy streams.

The Grasshopper - an excerpt

by Richard Lovelace