36 SPIDERS [CH. 



starting point, but any shrub or bush will do, and 

 young spiders have been seen setting sail from the 

 parent web itself. 



McCook has given some interesting notes of his 

 own observations on aeronautic spiders. He followed 

 an Attid spider fifty feet till it was carried upward 

 out of sight in a current of air. A Lycosid dis- 

 appeared in the same way after being followed at 

 a run for a hundred feet. The largest Epeirid he 

 ever saw taking flight was " the size of a marrowfat 

 pea, say one-fourth of an inch long. After having 

 floated over a field and above a hedgerow, it crossed 

 a road and anchored upon the top of a young tree." 

 But perhaps his most interesting observation was on 

 the ability of spiders to control in some measure the 

 duration of their flight by reefing their sails if they 

 wish to descend, for 'he saw a ballooning spider 

 collecting some of the streamers into a ball of silk 

 which accumulated near its mouth as it gradually 

 sank to earth. 



The phenomenon known as " gossamer' 1 has 

 puzzled people for centuries, and English poetical 

 literature is full of allusions to it. Chaucer classes 

 it with " ebbe and floud " as an unsolved riddle, and 

 Spenser, Quarles and Thomson all make mention of 

 it, generally embodying the popular belief that it 

 somehow had its origin in dew. " Scorched deaw ' 

 Spenser calls it, while Thomson's expression is " dew 



