OF SELBOKNE. 181 



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 which shewed 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 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 appear- 

 ance 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 odserved ; 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 



