The Natural History of Selborne 263 



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 

 evaporation, 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 [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 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 that I did 

 not assist it with my breath. So that these little crawlers 

 seem to have, while mounting, some locomotive power with- 

 out the use of wings, and to move in the air faster than the 

 air itself. 



