Is that the complete code you put in? If so, are you missing an enclosing <Files *> and </Files>? Something like that -- I don't claim expertise on this aspect of .htaccess files, but maybe that will give you a clue where to look?

Oh yeah: I presume you tried robots.txt first, and this spider is ill-mannered and refuses to obey the directives? I think you can specify an IP address there, but I won't swear to it.

Strange that this is still occurring even though everything I know about htaccess (which is limited) tells me it should be working. An htaccess file in the top level directory should apply to that directory and any subdirectories that don't have their own htaccess file. Somehow, this IP is managing to evade the block I have. To answer Mr. Phil, I'm not using <Files *> since I'm interested in blocking this IP range from all directories and files and not just a select group.

What's also puzzling me is where these IP addresses are showing up. I can always find them in my last 300 visitors stats, but don't see them show up in webalyzer or analog. I'm wondering if the requests are being logged by the last 300 visitors script but not actually delivering content to this IP range. Odd.