Does its web not also imprison the spider, Grasshopper?

Here's a great website for you budding entomologists and arachnologists. I could spend hours there. I took lots of photographs of bugs when I lived in the country. Now I can start classifying them and posting a Bug of the Month.

August's bug is the impressive Golden Orb Weaver (Argiope aurantia). I caught this one feasting on a large, and unlucky, grasshopper. The hoppers were so numerous last summer the field grass at times seemed animate, which may explain this spider's plump size (it was a little larger than my fist!). Actually I nearly walked face first into its web as I scrambled back up a hill through the brush. The females are about four times the size of the males so I hope this was a female! More pictures of her here.