Weavers and Spinners. 



scene, they probably cannot claim to be the oldest 



aeronauts. 



No : the most ancient race of Nature's aeronauts 



are probably the spiders, 

 for their fossil remains, 

 differing but slightly from 

 those of their descendants 

 of to-day, have been found 

 in the Carboniferous rocks. 



Far back in the history of 



the world, in that period 

 called by geologists the 

 Palaeozoic epoch, when great 

 tropical, swampy forests 

 spread over that part of 

 Britain where the coal- 

 measures of to-day exist, 

 spiders wove their webs 

 amidst the branches of gi- 

 gantic cycads, tree-ferns, and 

 reeds, and their offspring 

 floated out on aeronautical 

 adventure across the stag- 

 nant waters of the shallow 

 lagoons and swamps, their 

 frail gossamer air-rafts sup- 

 ported on the warm moist 

 breeze. 



The habits of spiders 



have probably undergone but little change since 

 long-distant days, and we find them a crafty, 



123 



those 

 ven- 



