SWALLOWS. 



249 



Staphylinus Brachypterus 

 (Magnified). 



extreme pain felt, as soon as the eye closes upon its prisoner : 

 this is occasioned, as the annexed figure will show, by the irri- 

 tation produced when 

 the insect, as in the 

 case of its larger repre- 

 sentative on the gravel 

 walk, on being caught, 

 instantly darts up its tail, 

 covered with similar 

 sharp and fork -like ap- 

 pendages. 



Our readers , on per us - 

 ing the above narrative 

 of the torpid state of 

 the migratory Swallows, may have been surprised that spiders 

 should be found in the mouth of a bird collecting its food on 

 the wing ; but they will be still more so, in hearing that 

 spiders form a very considerable part of the food of the 

 Swift, which flies higher in search of insects than any other 

 insect-feeding bird. The fact is, the air is abundantly 

 tenanted with small spiders, and to a height almost incre- 

 dible. Of the quantity, we may form some idea, by the 

 perfect carpeting of webs which are occasionally seen in an 

 autumnal morning, glistening with moisture. These are the 

 webs of the gossamer- spider, which, rendered heavier by the 

 dew collecting on their slender threads, fall to the ground, 

 and cover whole acres. 



Of the height to which these spiders rise, we have the 

 evidence of a person, who, from the summit of York Minster, 

 nearly two hundred feet above the ground, found himself 

 surrounded by immense flights of little spiders, floating up- 

 wards on their airy webs, and could perceive them, in equal 

 numbers, higher in the air, as far as the eye, aided by a good 

 telescope, could reach. 



It is a common weather rule, that when Swallows fly low, 

 there will be rain; but when high, it will be fair. The 

 reason may be readily guessed. They feed entirely, as we 

 have said, upon insects ; and the flight of insects depends, in 



