The Structure and Habits of Spiders. 83 



the same time large rags of web were floating 

 about in the air, one measuring five feet long, 

 and several inches wide. These appeared to be 

 not formed in the air, but torn from grass and 

 bushes, where they were produced by the 

 tangling of many threads which had been spun 

 separately. They kept rising all the fore- 

 noon, and in the afternoon came down again. 

 Not one in twenty had a spider on it. Similar 

 large webs were observed by Lincecum in 

 Texas, and supposed by him to be balloons spun 

 purposely by the spiders. 



Mr. Darwin, in the journal of the voyage of 

 "The Beagle," says, that when anchored in the 

 River Plata, sixty miles from shore, he has seen 

 the rigging covered with cobwebs, and the air 

 full of pieces of web floating about. The 

 spiders, however, when they struck the ship, 

 were always hanging from single threads, and 

 never to the floating webs. 



A recent account of the signs of weather- 

 changes near the southern coast of the United 

 States mentions as one of them cobwebs in 

 the rigging. 



It is still unexplained how the thread starts 



