BULLETIN 



ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



Vol. 3. Salem, Mass., February, 1871. No. 2. 



One Dollar a Year in Advance. 10 Cents a Single Copy. 



Regular Meeting, Monday, February 6, 1871. 



The President in the chair. Records of preceding 

 meeting read. 



Mr. James H. Emerton read a paper on the Flying 

 Spiders, illustrating his remarks by drawings on the black- 

 board. 



Some spiders, he said, have a habit of rising into the 

 atmosphere by the help of currents of air acting upon 

 threads of cobweb attached to their bodies. 

 The threads before rising are often tangled 

 together, covering the grass and bushes, 

 and floating in the air in large pieces. 



In Europe large flights of this web often 

 take place, particularly in the tall of the |§ 

 year. The web rises usually in the morn- 

 ing, when the weather is clear and calm, and descends 

 again in the afternoon, as the day becomes cooler. 



Travellers on the coast of South America have several 

 times seen the rigging of their vessels covered with cob- 

 webs, blown otf from the shore. Mr. Darwin, in his 

 journal of the voyage of the Beagle, gives an account of 

 Essex Inst. Bulletin. iii 3 



