338 MOTIONS or insects. 



coiidary object with them ? So prodigious are their 

 numbers, that sometimes every stalk of straw in the stub- 

 bles, and every clod and stone in the fallows, swarms 

 with them. Dr. Strack assures us that twenty or thirty 

 often sit upon a single straw, and that he collected about 

 2000 in half an hour, and could have easily doubled the 

 number had he wished it: he remarks, that the cause of 

 their escaping the notice of other observers, is their fall- 

 ing to the ground upon the least alarm. 



As to what becomes of this immense carpeting of 

 web there are different opinions. Mr. White conjec- 

 tures that these threads, when first shot, might be en- 

 tangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and 

 all, by a brisk evaporation, into the region where the 

 clouds are formed *. But this seems almost as inadmis- 

 sible as that of Hooke, before related. An ingenious 

 and observant friend, thinking the numbers of the flying 

 spiders not sufficient to produce the whole of the phe- 

 nomenon in question, is of opinion that an equinoctial 

 gale, sweeping along the fallows and stubbles coated with 

 the gossamer, must bring many single threads into con- 

 tact, which, adhering together, may gradually collect 

 into flakes ; and that being at length detached by the 

 violence of the wind, they are carried along with it: and 

 as it is known that sucli winds often convey even sand and 

 earth to great heights, he deems it highly probable that 

 so light a substance may be transported to so great an 

 elevation, as not to fall to the earth for some days after, 

 v>^ben the weather has become serene, or to descend upon 

 ships at sea, as has sometimes happened. This, which 

 is in part adopted from the German authors, is certainly 

 " Nat. Hist. i. 326. 



