THE AERONAUTIC OR BALLOONING HABIT. 275 



In later days, among our English ancestors, an explanation of this 

 phenomenon even stranger than Pliny's prevailed and found expression 

 through some of the English bards. For example, Spenser writes: 



"More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; 

 Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see, 

 Of scorched dew, do not in th' ayre more lightly flee." 1 



Still later Thomson in his " Seasons " utters the same idea : 



" How still the breeze ! save what the filmy threads 

 Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain." 2 



We have, however, passed beyond the period when so simple a natural 

 phenomenon could be accounted for on such an impossible theory as that 

 of autumnal dews scorched by the sun. 



I have never been so fortunate as to observe anything that could be 

 called a "shower" of gossamer, although I have seen quantities of the 

 material afloat in the air or fluttering from the foliage. I will therefore 

 quote from others a description of the phenomenon. Mr. Kirby describes 

 the gossamer observed by him early in the morning as spread over stub- 

 bles and fallows, sometimes so thickly as to make them appear as if cov- 

 ered with a gauzy carpet, or rather overflown by a sea of gauze, presenting, 

 when studded with dewdrops, a most enchanting spectacle. 3 



Rev. Gilbert White, whose "Natural History of Selborne" has been so 

 long and deservedly popular, describes such an incident as occurring in 

 England on September 21st, 1741. At daybreak he fo'und the stubble 

 and clover grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobwebs, in the 

 meshes of which a heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole face of 

 the country seemed covered with two or three fishing set-nets drawn one 

 over another. The dogs were so blinded by this deposit that they could 

 not hunt, but lay down and scraped the encumbrances from their faces 

 with their fore feet. "As the morning advanced," writes the author, "the 

 sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of those most 

 lovely ones which no season but autumn produces, cloudless, calm, serene, 

 and worthy of the south of France itself. About nine, an appearance very 

 unusual began to demand our attention a shower of cobwebs 

 a en falling from very elevated regions, and continuing without any 

 Shower interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not 

 single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but per- 

 fect flakes or rags ; some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which 

 fell with a degree of velocity that showed they were considerably heavier 

 than the atmosphere. 



1 Faerie Queene, B. 2, XII., s. 77. 2 Seasons : Summer, I., 1209. 



3 Kirby and Spence, Introduction to Entomology, Vol. II., 341, Letter XXIII. 



