GOSSAMER WEBS. 129 



attached, the little aeronaut can spring up into the air,* nor is 

 it (says Mr. Kennie) indispensable for her to rest upon a solid 

 body when producing a line, as she can do so while suspended 

 in the air by another. 



However incurious about their mode of formation, nobody 

 can have taken an early morning walk, especially towards 

 autumn, without having noticed these lines or webs of the 

 Gossamer Spider spread over hedge and field, a silken net- 

 work, studded with dew-drop diamonds. The prodigious 

 extent of these woven fabrics only corresponds with the sur- 

 prising multitude of their fabricators, of whom twenty or thirty 

 will sometimes be found assembled upon one straw of stubble. 

 It would appear, on these occasions, as if a portion of the sky- 

 lark's soaring spirit, infused by his animating song, was at 

 work within these little creeping forms. All seem bent upon 

 the object of ascension, all are in progress towards the summit 

 of their respective stations, whether stubble-straw, blade of 

 grass, hedge-twig, or railing. Having climbed to the greatest 

 height their legs will carry them, they raise their abdomens 

 to a position nearly perpendicular, at the same time emitting 

 a portion of the glutinous substance which forms their webs ; 

 this being acted on by the ascending current, is presently 

 drawn out into fine long lines, when the spiders, quitting 

 their hold of the objects whereon they stand, are carried aloft 

 on their journey towards the clouds. 



* See Insect Architecture. 



