GOSSAMER. 217 



and superstitious as the notions about them were 

 formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that 

 they are the real production of small spiders, 

 which swarm in the fields in fine weather in 

 autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs 

 from their tails, so as to render themselves buoy- 

 ant and lighter than air. But why these apterous 

 insects should that day take such a wonderful 

 aerial excursion, and why their webs .should at 

 once become so gross and material as to be con- 

 siderably more weighty than air, and to descend 

 with precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. 

 If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition, I 

 should imagine that those filmy threads, when 

 first shot, might be entangled in the rising de 

 and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk eva- 

 poration, into the regions where clouds are formed ; 

 and if the spiders have a power of coiling and 

 thickening their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister 

 says they have, [see his Letters to Mr. Ray,] then, 

 when they were become heavier than the air, they 

 must fall. 



Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, 

 do I see those spiders shooting out their webs 

 and mounting aloft : they will go off from your 

 finger, if you will take them into your hand. 

 Last summer one alighted on my book as I was 

 reading in the parlour ; and, running to the top 

 of the page, and shooting out a web, took its 

 departure from thence. But wiiat I most wondered 

 at was, that it went off with considerable velocity 

 in a place where no air was stirring ; and I am 

 sure that I did not assist it with my breath. So 

 that these little crawlers seem to have, while 

 mounting, some locomotive power without the 

 use of wrings, and to move in the air faster than 

 the air itself. 



