34:4: MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 
insects would fly high at all times in the summer in 
serene warm weather. Perhaps the flight of some par- 
ticular species constituting a favourite food of our little 
charioteers—the gnats, for instance, which we have seen 
sometimes rise in clouds into the air*—may at these times 
take place; or the species of spiders that are most given 
to these excursions, may not abound in their young 
state—when only they can fly—at other seasons of the 
year. 
Whether the same species that cover the earth with 
their webs produce those that fill the air, is to be our 
next inquiry. Did the appearance of the one always 
succeed that of the other, this might be reasonably con- 
cluded :—but the former, as I lately observed to you, 
often occurs without being followed by the latter. Yet, 
since it should seem that the aérial gossamer, though it 
does not always follow it, is always preceded by the 
terrestrial, this warrants a conjecture that they may be 
synonymous. ‘Two German authors, Bechstein> and 
Strack, have described the spider that produces gossa- 
mer in Germany under the name of Aranea obtextrix®. 
But it is not clear, unless they have described it at dif- 
ferent ages, when spiders often greatly change their ap- 
pearance, that they mean the same species. The former 
describes his as of the size of a small pin’s head, with its 
eight eyes disposed in a circle, having a black-brown 
body and light-yellow legs: while Dr. Strack represents. 
his A. obtextrix as more than two lines in length ; eyes 
four in a square, and two on each side touching each 
4 Vou. I. 4th Ed. 115. 
» Lichtenberg und Voight Magazin, 1789. vi. 53~. 
© Neve Schriften der Naturforsch. &c. 1810, y. Heft. 41-56. 
