190 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



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

 whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest venera- 

 tion) 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 thistledown, 

 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 succes- 

 sion, 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 appear- 

 ances, 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 

 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 why their webs should at once become so gross 

 and material as to be considerably more weighty than air, and 

 to descend with precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. If I 

 might be allowed to hazard a 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 evapora- 

 tion, into the regions 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, then, when they were become heavier 

 than the air, they must fall. 1 



1 One day when the air was full of such gossamers, Dr. Lister relates that 

 he mounted to the highest part of York Cathedral and found the gossamer 

 webs still far above him. 



" Its sone some wonder at the cause of thunder, 

 On ebbe and flode, on gossamer and mist, 

 And on all things till that the cause is wist." CHAUCER. 



