154 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY 



common above : but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to 

 the most elevated part of the down, 300 feet above his fields, he 

 found the webs in appearance still as much above him as before ; 

 still descending into sight in a constant succession, and twinkling 

 in the sun, so as to draw the attention of the most incurious. 



Neither before nor after was any such fall observed ; but on 

 this day the flakes hung in the trees 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 formerly, 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 material as to be considerably more 

 weighty than air, and to descend with precipitation, is a matter 

 beyond 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 region 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 [see his Letters 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 

 it's 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 mount- 

 ing, some loco- motive power without the use of wings, and to 

 move in the air faster than the air itself.^ 



' [Since White's time the curious subject of gossamer has been investigated by 

 Blackwall [Linn. Trans. , xv. , and British Spiders). Dr. Lincecum's account of the 

 gossamer spider of Texas (Amer. Nal., viii. ) and Darwin's Naturalists Voyage, 

 chap. viii. , may also be read with advantage. White's excellent description needs no 

 comment, except that his supposition that the filmy threads " might be entangled 

 in the rising dew" is quite impossible. His physical notions were evidently taken 

 from Hales' Statical Assays.} 



