SOCIALITY OF BETJTES. 205 



supposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads, when 

 first shot, might be entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn 

 up, spiders and all, by a brisk evaporation, into the region 

 where clouds are formed ; and if the spiders have a power of 

 coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister 

 says they have [see his Letters to Mr. Ray], then, when 

 they were become heavier than the air, they must fall. 



Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see 

 those spiders shooting out their webs and mounting aloft : 

 they will go off from your finger, if you will take them into 

 your hand. Last summer one alighted on my book as I was 

 reading in the parlour ; and, running up to the top of the 

 page, and shooting out a web, took his departure from thence. 

 But what I most wondered at was, that it went off with 

 considerable velocity in a place where no air was stirring ; 

 and I am sure that I did not assist it with my breath. So 

 that these little crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some 

 locomotive power without the use of wings, and to move in 

 the air faster than the air itself. 



LETTEE LXYI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Aug. 15, 1775. 



DEAR SIE, There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the 

 brute creation, independent of sexual attachment : the con- 

 gregation of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable 

 instance. 



Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay 

 one minute in a field by themselves : the strongest fences 

 cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse will not only 

 not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left 

 alone in a strange stable, without discovering the utmost 

 impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger 

 with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out at a stable- 

 window, through which dung was thrown, after company ; 

 and yet, in other respects, is remarkably quiet. Oxen and 



