SEPTEMBER. 249 



vice is truly beautiful, nor are the violet-hued 

 sloes and bullaces, or the crimson, mossy ex- 

 crescences of the wild rose-tree insignificant 

 objects amid the autumnal splendours of the 

 waning year. 



Notwithstanding the decrease of the day, 

 the weather of this month is, for the most part, 

 splendidly calm ; and Nature who knows the 

 most favourable moment to display all her 

 works, has now instructed the Geometric Spider 

 to form its radiated circle on every bush, and 

 the Gossamer Spider to hang its silken threads 

 on every blade of grass. We behold its in- 

 numerable filaments glittering with dew in the 

 morning, and sometimes, such is the immense 

 quantity of this secretion that it may be seen 

 floating in a profusion of tangled webs in the 

 air ; and covering our clothes, as we walk in the 

 fields, as with cotton. These little creatures, 

 the Gossamer Spiders, it has long been known, 

 have the faculty of throwing out several of 

 their threads on each side, which serve them as 

 a balloon to buoy them up into the air. With 

 these they sail into the higher regions of the 

 atmosphere, or return with great velocity. By 

 recent experiments, it appears that the Spider 

 and its web are not, as it was supposed, of less 

 specific gravity than the air, and by that means 

 ascend. The phenomenon has been supposed 



