18 



a case of this kind when the vessel was sixty miles from 

 land. A letter from an officer on one of the IT. S. 

 vessels, says that last autumn, when near Montevideo, 

 after a wind, the rigging was rilled with cobwebs, and 

 little spiders fell down all over the deck. 



In our own country such showers have seldom been 

 noticed, although the bushes and grass are often covered 

 with web, which float out in the air to the length of 

 several feet. One calm, warm morning in June, 1858, I 

 was watching some little spiders, about one-tenth of an 

 inch long, on the top of a fence in Bridge street, Salem. 

 Occasionally one would stop and turn up its abdomen, at 

 the same time straightening up its legs as if to get as 

 high as possible. A thread then passed upward from the 

 spinnerets at the end of the abdomen, increasing in a few 

 seconds to a yard in length, when the spider and thread 

 rose slowly upward, until the thread was entangled in the 

 branches of the trees above. Mr. K. P. Whitfield tells 

 me that once, near Utica, N. Y., while crossing a field of 

 stubble, he saw a multitude of spiders running up and 

 down the stalks, and when they found one to suit them, 

 letting a thread pass upward from their bodies, and when 

 enough had passed, rising with it into the air. Most 

 experiments tend to show that currents of air are the 

 cause of the spinning of these threads, but others have 

 believed that they could be better accounted for on electri- 

 cal principles. Some also have believed that the spiders 

 can fly without the help of web or currents of air. 



The President read a communication from Mr. M. A. 

 Stickney, "on Nathaniel Ames and his Almanacs." 



The almanac, one of the first productions of the New 

 England press (1639), always held a prominent place 

 anions; the essentials of a New England home in the 



