218 GOSSAMER. 



On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, he 

 might 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 Brad- 

 ley, Selborne, and Alresford, three places which lie 

 in a sort of triangle, the shortest of whose sides is 

 about eight miles in extent. 



At the second of those places, there was a gentle- 

 man (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 common above; 

 but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the 

 most elevated part of the down, 300 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 ob- 

 served ; 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 cob web - 

 like appearances, called gossamer, is, that strange 

 and superstitious as the notions about them were for- 

 merly, nobody in these days doubts but that they are 

 the real production of small spiders, which swarm 

 in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a 

 power of shooting out webs from their tails, so as 

 to render themselves buoyant, and lighter than air. 

 But why these apterous insects should that day take 

 such a wonderful aerial excursion, and whv their 



