138 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBOKNE. 



LET TEE XXIV.* 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Aug. \5tk, 1775. 



DEAR SIR, There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute 

 creation, independent of sexual attachment : the congregating of 

 gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. 



Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute 

 in a field by themselves : the strongest fences cannot restrain them. 

 My neighbour's horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he 

 will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without discovering 

 the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger 

 with his fore feet. He has been knoAvn to leap out at a stable- 

 window, through which dung was thrown, after company ; and yet in 

 other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by 

 themselves ; but will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended 

 by society. It would be needless to instance in sheep, which constantly 

 flock together. 



But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same 

 species ; for we know a doe, still alive, that was brought up from a 

 little fawn with a dairy of cows ; with them it goes a-field, and with 

 them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of 

 this deer, being used to her ; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase 

 ensues ; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading 

 her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, 



letter to Ray ; and at later periods it lias been noticed and commented upon by 

 various observers and entomologists. Blackwall, in a paper in the Transactions of 

 the Linnsean Society, observed, that it was principally young and immature spiders 

 that undertook the excursions, and thinks that they are borne upwards by an 

 ascending current of ratified air acting on their slender lines. He does not agree 

 with those who think that the flight is influenced by electricity. Mr. John Murray, 

 in his ' ' Researches in Natural History, " records several experiments ; and on one 

 occasion the thread was discharged to the ceiling of a room above eight feet high. 

 On another occasion a spider darted its thread perfectly horizontal, and in length 

 fully ten feet, and the angle of vision being particularly favourable, we observed 

 an extraordinary aura, or atmosphere, round the thread, which we cannot doubt 

 was "electric." Mr. Murray afterwards explains various phenomena, and arrives 

 at the conclusion that electricity is much connected with them ; he found that when 

 a conductor was brought near one of the floccular balls they are considerably 

 deflected from the perpendicular, and that when a stick of incited sealing-wax 

 was brought near the thread of suspension it seemed to be repelled. Mr. Murray 

 quotes Selborne, last paragraph of Letter XXIII., in regard to the spider shooting 

 out a thread in a calm atmosphere, and observes, " This phenomenon it has been 

 our fortune frequently to observe," and he arrives at the conclusion that the 

 electric or non-electric state of the atmosphere is intimately connected with the 

 shooting of the thread, and the ascent of the spider. We have often seen hundreds 

 of acres covered with this gossamer web sparkling with the morning dew, and the 

 little creatures must have been exceedingly numerous, many being seen, and we 

 regret never having attempted any computation, but no doubt this autumn will 

 give opportunity to any one resident in the country, and getting out of doors early. 

 Starck says that twenty or thirty are often found upon a single stubble, and that 

 he collected in half-an-hour two thousand, and could easily have got twice as 

 many had he wished it. 



* This letter is quoted from the original by Barrington, in his "Miscellanies," 

 Essay "On the prevailing Notions with regard to the Cuckoo," p. 251, and we 

 presume as received from its author. 



