GOSSAMER. 51 



of grass or rail-posts, are inwardly invoking, we suspect, the 

 presence of some gentle air, to assist them in shooting their 

 lines, those threads of suspension, long and strong, on which is 

 to hang the ingenious fabric of their toils. This shooting of 

 the spider's lines, and that associate " wonder," the origin of 

 Gossamer, may as well form our not unseasonable theme. 



The apparent flight of the wingless spider from tree to tree, 

 across water, and even through the upper regions of air, has 

 been almost as great a puzzle to naturalists, as the Fly's walk 

 against gravity. It was no doubt soon discovered, that this 

 flight in seeming, was no more a real one than that of an 

 aeronaut in a balloon, or than those of the foolhardy adven- 

 turers, such as, from the times of Hogarth to our own, have now 

 and then made rope-borne transits from steeple to steeple. 



That the spider travelled by a line was apparent enough to 

 nice observers ; but the marvel long was, how such lengthy 

 lines could be shot forth, as, when attached accidentally to 

 some fixed body, serve to provide the insect traveller with 

 a cable bridge to cross from plant to plant, or from tree to 

 tree; or when floating loosely, serve equally to promote the 

 more ambitious purpose of bearing him upwards when disposed 

 to mount in air. 



However incurious about their mode of formation, nobody 

 can have taken an early morning walk, especially towards 

 autumn, without having noticed these lines or webs of the 

 Gossamer Spider spread over hedge and field, a silken net- work, 

 studded with dew-drop diamonds. The prodigious extent of 

 these woven fabrics only corresponds with the surprising mul- 

 titude of their fabricators, of whom twenty or thirty will some- 

 times be found assembled upon one straw of stubble. It would 

 appear, on these occasions, as if a portion of the sky-lark's 

 soaring spirit, infused by his animating song, was at work 

 within these little creeping forms. All seem bent upon the 

 object of ascension, all are in progress towards the summit of 

 their respective stations, whether stubble-straw, blade of grass, 



