GOSSAMER. 181 



inch broad, and five or six long, which fell with a degree of 

 velocity, that shewed they were considerably heavier than the 

 atmosphere. 



On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, he might 

 behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his 

 sight, and twinkling like stars, as they turned their sides towards 

 the sun. 



How far this wonderful shower extended, would be difficult 

 to say ; but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and 

 Alresford, three places which lie in a sort of triangle, the 

 shortest of whose sides is about eight miles in extent. 



At the second of those places, there was a gentleman, (for 

 whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest 

 veneration,) who observed it the moment he got abroad ; but 

 concluded that, as soon as he came upon the hill above his 

 house, where he took his morning rides, he should be higher 

 than this meteor, which he imagined might have been blown, 

 like thistle-down, from the common above ; but, to his great 

 astonishment, when he rode to the most elevated part of the 

 down, three hundred feet above his fields, he found the webs, 

 in appearance, still as much above him as before ; still des- 

 cending into sight in constant succession, and twinkling in the 

 sun, so as to draw the attention of the most incurious. 



Neither before nor after, was any such fall observed ; but on 

 this day, the flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that 

 a diligent person sent out might have gathered baskets full. 



The remark that I shall make on these cobweb-like appear- 

 ances, called gossamer, is, that strange 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 buoyant 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 considerably 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 dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a 

 brisk evaporation, into the regions where clouds are formed ; 

 and if the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening their 

 tvebs in the air, as Dr Lister says they have, [see his Letters 





