2 4 4 



SWALLOWS. 



Staphylinus Brachypterus 

 (Magnified). 



prisoner ; this is occasioned, as the annexed figure will show, 



by the irritation produced 

 when the insect, as in the 

 case of its larger represen- 

 tative on the gravel walk, 

 on being caught, instantly 

 darts up its tail, covered 

 with similar sharp and fork- 

 like appendages. 



Our readers, on perusing 

 the above narrative of the 

 torpid state of the migratory 

 Swallows, may have been surprised that spiders should be 

 found in the mouth of a bird collecting its food on the wing ; 

 but they will be still more so, in hearing that spiders form a 

 very considerable part of the food of the Swift, which flies 

 higher in search of insects than any other insect-feeding bird. 

 The fact is, the air is abundantly tenanted with small spiders, 

 and to a height almost incredible. Of the quantity we may 

 form some idea, by the perfect carpeting of webs which are 

 occasionally seen in an autumnal morning, glistening with 

 moisture. These are the webs of the gossamer-spider, which, 

 rendered heavier by the dew collecting on their slender threads, 

 fall to the ground, and cover whole acres. 



Of the height to which these spiders rise, we have the evi- 

 dence of a person, who, from the summit of York Minster, 

 nearly two hundred feet above the ground, found himself 

 surrounded by immense flights of little spiders, floating up- 

 wards on their airy webs, and could perceive them, in equal 

 numbers, higher in the air, as far as the eye, aided by a good 

 telescope, could reach. 



It is a common weather rule, that when Swallows fly low, 

 there will be rain ; but when high it will be fair. The reason 

 may be readily guessed. They feed entirely, as we have said, 

 upon insects ; and the flight of insects depends, in a great 

 degree, on the state of the air ; if it is clear and dry, they rise ; 

 if moist, or likely to be so, they keep nearer the ground : and 

 thus the Swallow, like the hand of the clock, moved by in- 



