THE AERONAUTIC OR BALLOONING HABIT. 



273 



VII. 



There seems nothing improbable in the theory of aerial circumnaviga- 

 tion suggested to explain the series of facts above presented. There are 



not, indeed, many recorded observations of the distances to which 

 f* 1 ei spiders are carried out to sea in their aeronautic flights. But, 



before a strong steady wind, or in cases of storm, it is possible 

 that the greatest distances which appear in the tables could be overcome. 

 An observation of Mr. Darwin is the only recorded one to which I can 

 refer. 1 At the distance of sixty miles from land, while the "Beagle" was 

 sailing before a steady, light breeze, the rigging was covered with vast 

 numbers of small spiders with their webs. The little spider, when first 

 coming in contact with the rigging, was always seated upon a single 

 thread. While watching some that were suspended by this filament, the 

 slightest breath of air was found to bear them out of sight. I have ob- 

 served similar single threaded "balloons" sailing at considerable height 



FIG. 279. The Huntsman spider; a male. C, the female's cocoon. 



above the surface of the earth, and know no reason why, with a favorable 

 breeze, they might not have been carried hundreds of miles. That they 

 were carried at least sixty miles, as Mr. Darwin's testimony shows, and 

 that before a light breeze, gives great probability to such a conjecture. It 

 is to be noted, moreover, that the spiders arrested by the " Beagle's " rig- 

 ging were evidently moving on when so stopped, and some of them, when 

 arrested, soon resumed their flight across the main. 



I am able to add a valuable observation in the same line as that of 

 Dr. Darwin's. The late Capt. George H. Dodge, of the American Line 

 steamer " Pennsylvania," informed me, during a voyage across the Atlantic 

 in the winter of '81-2, that he had found the masts and rigging of his 



1 Voyage of the Beagle, Vol. III., page 187. 



