196 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



and the day turned out one of those most lovely ones which no 

 season but the autumn produces ; cloudless, calm, serene, and 

 worthy of the South of France itself. 



About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our 

 attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, 

 and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day. 

 These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all 

 directions, but perfect flakes or rags ; some near an inch broad, 

 and five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity that 

 showed they were considerably heavier than the atmosphere. 



On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he behold 

 a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and 

 twinkling like stars as they turned their sides towards the sun. 



How far this wonderful shower extended would be difficult to 

 say; but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, 

 three places which lie in a sort of a triangle, the shortest of whose 

 sides is about eight miles in extent. 



At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for whose 

 veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest veneration) who 

 observed it the moment he got abroad \ but concluded that, as 

 soon as he came upon the hill above his house, where he took his 

 morning rides, he should be higher than this meteor, which he 

 imagined might have been blown, like thistle-down, from the com- 

 mon above ; but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the 

 most elevated part of the down, three hundred feet above his fields, 

 he found the webs in appearance still as much above him as 

 before ; still descending into sight in a constant succession, and 

 twinkling in the sun, so as to draw the attention of the most 

 incurious. 



Neither before nor after was any such fall observed ; but on this 

 day the flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick that a 

 diligent person sent out might have gathered baskets full. 



The remark that I shall make on these cobweb-like appearances, 

 called gossamer, is, that, strange and superstitious as the notions 

 about them were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that 

 they are the real production of small spiders, which warm in the 

 fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting ou; 



