NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 89 



tions in his Latin letter to Rayth ; and at later periods it has been noticed and 

 commented upon by various observers and entomologists. Blackwall, in a paper 

 in the Transactions of the Linnrean Society, observed that it was principally young 

 and immature spiders that undertook the excursions, and thinks that they are borne 

 upwards by an ascending current of rarefied air acting on their slender lines. He 

 does not agree with those who think that the flight is influenced by electricity. 

 Mr. John Murray, in his "Researches in Natural History," records several ex- 

 periments ; and on one occasion the thread was discharged to the ceiling of a 

 room above eight feet high. On another occasion a spider darted its thread per- 

 fectly horizontal, and in length fully ten feet, and the angle of vision being parti- 

 cularly favourable, we observed an extraordinary aura, or atmosphere, round the 

 thread, which we cannot doubt was "electric." Mr. Murray afterwards explains 

 various phenomena, and arrives at the conclusion that electricity is much con- 

 nected with them ; he found that when a conductor was brought near one of the 

 floccular balls they are considerably deflected from the perpendicular, and that 

 when a stick of incited sealing-wax was brought near the thread of suspension it 

 seemed to be repelled. Mr. Murray quotes Selborne, last paragraph of Letter 

 XXI 1 1., in regard to the spider shooting out a thread in a calm atmosphere, and 

 observes, "This phenomenon it has been our fortune frequently to observe," and 

 he arrives at the conclusion that the electric or non-electric state of the atmos- 

 phere is intimately connected with the shooting of the thread and the ascent of 

 the spider. We have often seen hundreds of acres covered with this gossamer 

 web sparkling with the morning dew, and the little creatures must have been 

 exceedingly numerous, many being seen, and we regret never having attempted 

 any computation, but no doubt this autumn will give opportunity to any resident 

 in the country, and getting out of doors early. Starck says that twenty or thirty 

 are often found upon a single stubble, and that he collected in half-an-hour two 

 thousand, and could easily have got twice as many had he wished it." [R. B. S.] 



VOL. II. M 



