The Daily Dispatch: June 13, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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The wonderful works of God.

--Some days since, while writing in my office, my attention was directed to a small spider descending from the under side of a table in the corner of the room, where it had stationed itself unmolested. A large horse-fly, many times too large for the spider — which was very small — to manage, had by some means become disabled and lay on the floor. The spider descended to the fly, and, with some caution, began to entangle it in its web, and soon had it completely bound. The spider then ascended to the table, and soon descended again, and thus continued to ascend and descend for some time, fastening the fly more completely each time it returned. I was at a loss to know its object in binding the fly so completely on the floor. Soon, however, it ceased descending, and appeared to be busily employed at its station near the table. I could not conceive what its object was in passing about so very actively; but imagine my surprise, when in a short time I saw the fly leave the floor and begin to ascend towards the table. This was soon explained. The spider had attached a number of cords to the fly, extending from the table, and by stretching each to its greatest tension and confining the upper end, the elasticity of all the cords — some fifty or more — was combined in raising the fly. By continuing the process of tightening one cord at a time, in some fifteen or twenty minutes the fly was raised to the table, and there deposited for future use.