NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 127 



SHOWERS OF COBWEBS, p. 189. An excellent account of 

 aeronautic spiders has been published in " Researches in 

 Zoology," by John Blackwall (Van Voorst, Paternoster Row, 

 1873). Mr. Blackwall writes, as regards a shower of cobwebs : 



" A little before noon on the 1st of October, 1826, which was 

 a remarkably calm sunny day, I observed that the fields and 

 hedges in the neighbourhood of Manchester were covered over 

 by the united labours of an immense multitude of spiders, with 

 a profusion of fine, glossy lines, intersecting one another at every 

 angle and forming a confused kind of network. So extremely 

 numerous were these slender filaments that in walking across 

 a small pasture my feet and ankles were thickly coated with 

 them. It was evident, however, notwithstanding their great 

 abundance, that they must have been produced in a very short 

 space of time. 



" From contemplating this display of gossamer, my thoughts 

 were naturally directed to the animals which produced it; and 

 the countless myriads in which they swarmed almost created as 

 much surprise as the singular occupation that engrossed them. 

 Apparently actuated by the same impulse, all were intent upon 

 traversing the regions of air ; accordingly, after gaining the 

 summit of various objects, as blades of grass, stubble, rails, 

 gates, &c., by. the slow and laborious process of climbing, they 

 raised themselves still higher by straightening their limbs ; and 

 elevating the abdomen, by bringing it from the usual horizontal 

 position into one almost perpendicular, they emitted from their 

 spinning apparatus a small quantity of the glutinous secretion 

 with which they fabricate their silken tissues. This viscid 

 substance being drawn out by the ascending current of rarefied 

 air into fine lines several feet in length, was carried upwards, 

 until the spiders, feeling themselves acted upon with sufficient 

 force in that direction, quitted their hold of the objects on 

 which they stood and commenced their journey by mounting 

 aloft." 



Mr. Blackwall's experiments on these spiders are very 

 interesting. 



SILK OF SPIDER. Mr. Groom Napier writes : " I gathered 

 about 200 cocoons of the garden spider ; these being wound 

 with a common silk reel, were twisted into thread of different 

 thicknesses, which I again twisted into cord, some as fine as 

 purse silk, others as thick as whipcord, but had only a few 

 inches of each length. This being tested against the thread of 

 the common silkworm of similar weight, proved to be twice as 

 strong. The great objection to this silk for ornamental purposes 



