166 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 loco-motive power 

 without the use of wings, and to move in the air, faster 

 than the air itself. 



LETTER XXIV 

 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775. 



DEAR SIR, 



THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute 

 creation, independent of sexual attachment : the con- 

 gregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable 

 instance. 



Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay 

 one minute in a field by themselves : the strongest fences 

 cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse will not only 

 not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be 

 left alone in a strange stable without discovering the 

 utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack 

 and manger with his fore feet. He has been known 

 to leap out at a stable-window, through which dung was 

 thrown, after company ; and yet in other respects is 

 remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by 



