52 GOSSAMER WEBS. 



hedge-twig, or railing. Having climbed to the greatest height 

 their legs will carry them, they raise their abdomens to a 

 position nearly perpendicular, at the same time emitting a 

 portion of the glutinous substance which forms their webs ; 

 this being acted on by the ascending current, is presently drawn 

 out into long fine lines, when the spiders, quitting their hold 

 of the objects whereon they stand, are carried aloft on their 

 journey towards the clouds. 



Having thus seen the way in which Spiders shoot their 

 lines, we come now to the examination of Gossamer, of which 

 these lines form the material. After having served, singly, 

 their fabricators' turn, either as bridges to cross the vacant 

 gulf, or as balloons to rise sky-wards, they are brought together 

 by the action of " gentle airs," gradually assume the shape of 

 fleecy flakes, composed of irregular silky masses, and then by 

 an ascending current of rarified air are borne hundreds of feet 

 into the atmosphere. On falling, when the upward current 

 ceases, it would appear by observation of the naturalist above 

 referred to, that few of these webs contain a Spider, though 

 numerous winged insects are found entangled in them. Dr. 

 Lister, however, found more than once in the webs which 

 he saw fall from heaven, one of these mounting Spiders, which 

 he calls "birds," and describes some of them as converting 

 their floating lines into chariots or balloons offtake, by pulling 

 them in with their fore-feet as they fly. From the top of York 

 Minster, the same observer watched the descent of webs, high 

 above him, and on examination of some caught on the pinnacles 

 of the cathedral, considered such of the adventurous aeronauts 

 as he found within them, to be all juveniles, of light weight 

 corresponding to their age. One of them he calls " an excellent 

 rope-dancer, wonderfully delighted with darting its threads," 

 adding, that " by means of its legs closely applied to each other, 

 it, as it were, balances itself and promotes and directs its course, 

 no otherwise than as if nature had furnished it with wings or oars." 



From the floating lines and aerial chariots cf the Spiders 



