Young Mr. Barter's Repentance by David Christie Murray

It would appear that a spider may be among the most daring, skilful, and predatory of his species, that he may be gifted with the most constant watchfulness and appetite, and yet, whether by the intrusion of an accidental walking-stick or broom (which would assuredly seem providential to the fly), or by stress of weather, or the desperate activity of a victim, may have his best laid schemes brought to nought, and his most mathematically laid web rent to tatters. In the entomological world a solitary interview between fly and spider is usually fatal to the one, and satisfactory to the other. But we of the higher developments, who model ourselves, or are modelled, upon the lines of myriads of remote ancestors, and far-away relatives, have refined upon their primitive proceedings, and have made their simple activities complex by development.

In an absolutely primitive condition the Steinberg spider would have drained the Barter fly at a single orgie, and would have left him to wither on the lines. As things were, he came back to him with a constant gusto of appetite, tasting him on Monday, despatching him to buzz among his fellows until Saturday, and then tasting him again, the Barter fly seeming for a while -- for quite a considerable time in fact -- lusty and active and able-bodied, and looking as though this kind of thing might go on for ever without much damage to him, and the spider himself giving no sign of overtaxed digestive powers.