One day in the forest I spied not far from the ground, just by an old dead tree, a little bit of a long-legged spider waging a terrible conflict with a caterpillar, which, without exaggeration, must have been at least thirty or forty times larger than the body of the little, slender, and long-legged spider. I immediately took from my pocket my magnifying-glass, in order to see better; then saw, about four inches from the ground, spreading from under the dead branch of the tree, several threads of a web which hung down, embracing a space of four or five inches, and ending in one thread as it came near the caterpillar. That single thread was entangled in the hair of the caterpillar and round its neck, and the caterpillar hung by it. The end of his body scarcely touched the ground. Then there was a desperate struggle. I suppose the caterpillar, before being caught, was down on the ground quietly eating some leaves, and the spider dropped down upon it like a wild beast would pounce upon its prey. I lay flat on the ground to look at the conflict. This time the long legs of the spider were of the same use to it as were those of the wasp in the other fight I have related. For a long while there was a great struggle, the caterpillar shaking and turning round and round as it hung by that single thread; often its body would twist into a circle, the end touching the head, when suddenly, at one of these twists, the spider, by some dexterous movements, spun one of its threads round the caterpillar, binding the tail to the head. The caterpillar, by a desperate effort, broke the thread, and freed the lower part of its body. The spider was so small that I had to use the magnifying-glass all the time in order to watch its movements. At first the attention of the spider was entirely engaged in securing its prey. When the caterpillar was struggling hard to disentangle itself, it would come down and spin thread after thread round the hairy body of its victim, and then unite them to the single thread.