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found in myriads scattered and borne everywhere on their airy webs miles distant 
from their starting point. These little creatures have the power of shooting out 
lines of gossamer from their spinnerets, so as to render themselves buoyant and 
lighter than air; and these lines are carried upwards and onwards by aerial 
currents, and convey the little spiders with as much safety as if they had wings, 
and hence they are popularly called ‘‘ Fliers.” They can coil and thicken the lines 
in the air, and by this means, as well as by the lines crossing and tangling with 
each other, the webs are sustained in the air, and cause us much discomfort when 
we find our faces suddenly covered with this filmy veil. White, of Selborne, tells 
us he was one day prevented from hunting, the dogs being blinded with the webs. 
Towards the end of October, meadows, hedges, stubb’e-fields, and even whole 
districts appear covered with a fine, spangling, silvery gauze. These little 
creatures do not make webs, but extend their threads from one place to another. 
The threads are so fine that we cannot see them unless the sun shines upon them. 
One of them to be visible at any other time must be composed of at least six 
ordinary threads twisted together. In the fields a person with a quick eye, or by 
the assistance of a lens, may frequently see among the stubble, grass, &c., such a 
multitude of these little fairy weavers extending their threads that the fields 
appear to be alive with them— 
Stretched from blade to blade, 
The wavy net-work whitens all the field. 
When several of the single threads become tangled so as to form flocks and balls, 
they are known in Germany by the name of ‘‘ The Flying Summer,” because the 
summer seems to fly away at the same time. The gossamer elevates its spinnerets, 
sends forth its thread, and sails away faster than the eye can follow it. The uses 
to which spiders and their webs have been placed are very various. They have 
been used in medicine from very early times. Albin, the author of ‘ Natural 
History of Spiders, 1736,” says that Dame Hughes, of Tottenham Court Road, 
had a Tertian ague for three years, and that he cured it by giving her the web of 
the house spider mixed with mithridate. He also states that he has cured several 
children of ague by hanging a large spider confined alive in a box about their neck, 
reaching to the pit of the stomach, without giving any internal remedies. Dr. 
Watson in 1760, made trial, by the advice of Dr. Gillespie, of the web of the cellar 
spider, with great success. He also made his patients swallow spiders gently 
bruised and wrapped up in a raisin or spread upon bread and butter, also keeping 
a spider suspended from the patient’s neck till it died. Dr. Gillespie afterwards 
advised Dr. Jackson to make use of it, and in 1801 he cured many cases of ague 
with it. Here the question may be asked, might not these cures have been the 
result of fright? Granted, we know there have been cures effected by terror, but 
still thanks are due to the spider, be the cause from what it may, the beneficial 
results that have been mentioned were the same, and we must feel convinced that 
it was more disagreeable to the spider than it was to the patient. 
Shakespeare, in ‘‘ Midsummer Night’s Dream,” alludes to the web 
stopping bleeding. In the first scene of Act the third he makes Bottom say, ‘I 
shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb. If I cut my finger 
T shall make bold with you,” 
