182 GOSSAMER. 



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 what 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 wings, and to move in the air faster than the air itself. * 



* Gossamer has been long noticed both by poets and naturalists. It is 

 now known to be produced by several different kinds of spiders, particu- 

 larly the flying ones. Mr Murray, who has given much attention to the 

 economy of these insects, says, they have the power of projecting their 

 threads to a considerable distance, and by this means transporting them- 

 selves from the ground to any elevation in the atmosphere, or from the 

 apex of one object to another. He is of opinion that the threads of their 

 web are electric, or so influenced by that subtle element, that buoyancy is 

 imparted, and the baseless shrouds of this aerial voyager are, together 

 with their fabricator, raised into the higher regions of the air. 



Most spiders, when crawling over uneven surfaces, leave behind them 

 a thread, serving as a cable, or line of suspension, lest they should fall, or 

 be blown from their eminence ; so that nearly the whole surface of the 

 ground is covered with the net work of these singular animals. Besides 

 the ground spiders, other wanderers contribute to these accumulations, 

 which, however delicate, are at the same time durable. That this tissue 

 is always on the increase, may be noticed by following a plough for a 

 short space ; for no sooner has it finished one ridge, than the fresh mould 

 turned up is equally interlaced with innumerable threads, which glisten 

 in the sun's rays, and can only be accounted for by the circumstance 

 mentioned by Mr Murray, that during fine weather the air is filled with 

 these excursive webs of the aranea aeronautica. The spider is often seen 

 at the end of its thread, with extended limbs, balancing itself like a bird, 

 and invariably floating before the wind. The same gentleman, however, 

 says, he has seen threads projected in a close room, where there was no 

 current of air to carry them in a direct line, which is an interesting fact. 



Mr Murray thinks that electricity, either positive or negative, is an 

 active agent in the movement of the spiders' webs ; which opinion haa 

 been combated by Mr Blackwall, who asserts, that they have not the 

 power of propelling their webs without assistance from the wind, and 

 that the cobwebs seen floating in the air are raised from the surface of the 

 ground by the action of air, highly rarified by a cloudless sun. ED. 



