338 MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



condary object with them? So prodigious are their 

 numbers, that sometimes every stalk of straw in the stub- 

 bles, and every clod and stone in the fallows, swarms 

 with them. Dr. Strack assures us that twenty or thirty 

 often sit upon a single straw, and that he collected about 

 2000 in half an hour, and could have easily doubled the 

 number had he wished it : he remarks, that the cause of 

 their escaping the notice of other observers, is their fall- 

 ing to the ground upon the least alarm. 



As to what becomes of this immense carpeting of 

 web there are different opinions. Mr. White conjec- 

 tures that these threads, when first shot, might be en- 

 tangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and 

 all, by a brisk evaporation, into the region where the 

 clouds are formed a . But this seems almost as inadmis- 

 sible as that of Hooke, before related. An ingenious 

 and observant friend, thinking the numbers of the flying 

 spiders not sufficient to produce the whole of the phe- 

 nomenon in question, is of opinion that an equinoctial 

 gale, sweeping along the fallows and stubbles coated with 

 the gossamer, must bring many single threads into con- 

 tact, which, adhering together, may gradually collect 

 into flakes ; and that being at length detached by the 

 violence of the wind, they are carried along with it : and 

 as it is known that such winds often convey even sand and 

 earth to great heights, he deems it highly probable that 

 so light a substance may be transported to so great an 

 elevation, as not to fall to the earth for some days after, 

 when the weather has become serene, or to descend upon 

 ships at sea, as has sometimes happened. This, which 

 is in part adopted from the German authors, is certainly 

 a Nat. Hist. i. 326. 



