CH. XIV.] THE SPIDER. 247 



summer one alighted on my book, as I was reading 

 in the parlour, and running to the top of the page, 

 and shooting out a web, took its 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 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 move faster than the 

 air in the air itself." Their motion in flying is 

 smoother and quicker than when a spider runs along 

 its thread. 



There are many questions connected with our 

 aeronauts, which are more readily asked than an- 

 swered ; and the first is, why do they mount at all ? 

 Kirby is of opinion, that they are destined to thin 

 the air of those swarms of gnats and other insects, 

 which ascend to considerable height in the summer 

 evenings, and as a corroboration of his conjectures, 

 adds, that their exuviae are detected in the gossa- 

 mers which have fallen. 



It is doubted also, whether the " sea of gauze sil- 

 vered with dew," which is found in the summer 

 morning, covering the fallows, is ever carried up 

 into the air. The dew itself is greedily drank by 

 these spiders. The cause of the showers of gossa- 

 mer is also a matter of dispute among naturalists. 



Spiders frequently manifest various modifications 

 of their instinctive craft and cruelty. There are 

 some species that lie concealed in a rolled up leaf, 

 and pounce upon any insect that may be unwarily 

 passing. Others that lurk in the cup of a flower, 

 and murder the fly that comes to seek honey. 

 Others counterfeit death, and thus inveigle their 

 prey within their reach. Others seek the blossoms 

 of umbelliferous plants, which resemble them in 

 colour and in shape, and thus entrap their victims. 



There is a tribe of hunting-spiders that leap like 

 tigers on their prey, and what is more extraordinary 



