SHOWERS OF GOSSAMER 



WE read of the Indian conjuror who throws a rope 

 into the air and climbs up it, but we can see spiders 

 actually doing something of this sort. It is especially, 

 though not by any means exclusively, in the Autumn that 

 threads of silk may be seen floating in the air, just visible 

 when the sunlight makes them glisten, or entangled in 

 incredible numbers on hedgerows and among the herbage. 

 Sometimes as we walk over the links and stoop down to 

 look along the short grass, we see that it is quivering with 

 myriads of silken lines, the fallen threads of gossamer, 

 often iridescent in the sunlight. 



The Germans sometimes call it " Der fliegende Sommer," 

 and the French "Fil de la Vierge," and there is possibly 

 in the name gossamer an even more poetical suggestion. 

 But it is fine enough in itself to dispense with uncertain 

 etymological decorations. Of the fleeting Summer it is 

 indeed a hint, but it seems to occur in Britain at almost 

 every season, when there is fine clear weather. 



Gossamer showers have attracted attention from early 

 times; thus Pliny records how it rained wool about the 

 Castle Carissa, and now and again they occur on such a 

 large scale that they force themselves on the attention of 

 the most careless. A good example is recorded in Gilbert 

 White's 23rd Letter : 



" On the 2ist September 1741, being then on a visit, 

 and intent on field diyersions, I rose before daybreak : 

 when I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and 



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