180 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



he imagined might have been blown, like Thistle-down, from the 

 common above : but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to 

 the most elevated part of the down, 300 feet above his fields, he 

 found the webs in appearance still as much above him as before ; 

 still descending into sight in a constant succession, and twinkling 

 in the sun, so as to draw the attention of the most incurious. 



Neither before nor after was any such fall observed ; but on 

 this day the flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that a 

 diligent person sent out might have gathered baskets full. 



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 preci- 

 pitation, 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 won- 

 dered 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. f 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. 



* The commonest species of spider that spins gossamer, is the aranea obtectrix of systeinatists. 

 -En. 



t Mr. White must have heen deceived in this instance, for it will be found that the gossamer 

 spider endeavours in vain to float its web whei placed under a glass receiver. ED. 



