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 appearances, called gossamer, is, that, strange 

 and superstitious as the notions about them were for- 

 merly, 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 ma- 

 terial as to be considerably more weighty than air, 

 and to descend with precipitation, is a matter be- 

 yond 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 webs in the air, as Dr. Lister 

 says they have, then, when they were become heavier 

 than the air, they must fall.* 



* One day when the air was full of such gossamers, Dr. Listers relates 

 that he mounted to the highest part of York Cathedral and found the 

 gossamer webs still far above him. 



" Its sone some wonder at the cuuse of thunder. 

 On ebbe and flode, on gossamer and mist, 

 And on all things till that the cause is wist." — Chaucer. 

 5Q 



