MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 465 
where he also alludes to the old opinion of scorched dew. But the first 
naturalists who made this discovery appear to have been Dr. Hulse and 
Dr. Martin Lister — the former first observing that spiders shoot their 
webs into the air; and the latter, besides this, that they were carried upon 
them in that element! This last gentleman, in fine serene weather in 
September, had noticed these webs falling from the heavens, and in them 
discovered more than once a spider, which he named the dird. On an- 
other occasion, whilst he was watching the proceedings of a common 
spider, the animal, suddenly turning upon its back and elevating its anus, 
darted forth a long thread, and vaulting from the place-on which he stood 
was carried upwards to a considerable height. Numerous observations 
afterwards confirmed this extraordinary fact ; and he further discovered 
that while they fly in this manner, they pull in their long thread with their 
fore feet, so as to form it into a ball —or, as we may call it, air-balloon— 
of flake. The height to which spiders will thus ascend he affirms is pro- 
digious. One day in the autumn, when the air was full of webs, he mounted 
to the top of the highest steeple of York minster, from whence he could 
discern the floating webs still very high above him. Some spiders that fell 
and were entangled upon the pinnacles he took. They were of a kind 
that never enter houses, and therefore could not be supposed to haye taken 
their flight from the steeple.? It appears. from his observations: that this 
faculty is not confined to one species of spider, but is common to several, 
though only in their young half-grown state®; whence we may infer 
that when full-grown their bodies are too heavy to be thus conveyed. 
One spider he noticed that at one time contented itself with ejaculating a 
single thread, while at others it darted out several, like so many shining 
rays at the tail of a comet. Of these, in Cambridgeshire in October, he 
once saw an incredible number sailing in the air. Speaking of his Ar. 
subfuscus minutissimis oculis, &c., he says, “ Certainly this is an excellent 
rope-dancer, and is wonderfully delighted with darting its threads: nor is 
it only carried in the air, like the preceding ones ; but it effects itself its 
ascent and sailing: for, by means of its legs closely applied to each other. 
it as it were balances iteall and promotes and directs its course no other- 
wise than as if nature had furnished it with wings or oars.”® A later but 
equally gifted observer of nature, Mr. White, confirms Dr. Lister’s ac- 
count. “ Every day in fine weather in autumn,” says he, “ do I see these 
spiders shooting out their webs, and mounting aloft ; they will go off from 
the finger if you 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 its 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 
mounting some locomotive power without the use of wings, and move 
faster than the air in the air itself.”® A writer in the last number of 
1 Ray’s Letters, 36. 69. 
8) Ray’s Letters, 87. 87. Lister, De Aran. 80. Lister illustrates the force with 
which these creatures shoot their thread, by a homely Seah very forcible simile: 
Resupinata (says he) anum in yentum dedit, filumque ejaculata est quo plane mode 
robustissimus juvenis e distentissima yesica urinam.” 
5 De Araneis, 8. 27. 64, 75. 79. + Ibid. 79. 5 Ibid. 85, 
® Nat, Hist, i, 827, 
U 
