INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. 
389 
I found the same phasnomenon, and my clothes were most 
curiously invested with a net-work of spiders'* threads. 
In a communication to the Reverend J. J. Freeman of 
Kidderminster, I remarked this circumstance ; and the fol- 
lowing is an extract from his letter to me, dated 18th Sep- 
tember 1822: — " The fall of cobwebs was also observed 
here on Monday. A gentleman told me he was obliged to 
wipe his face several times while walking in his garden 
about 12 or 1 oVlock, such quantities continued to fall on 
him;' 
On the 19th of July 1822 (the anniversary of the Royal 
Coronation), the yeomanry, at 1 o'clock p. m. were drawn 
up in the market-place at Kidderminster, and fired a feu- 
de-Joie on the occasion. This had the effect of bringing 
great numbers of the Aranea aeronautica from the aerial 
regions ; very many I picked up from the pavement, when 
the yeomanry had withdrawn ; and several took refuge on 
the table where I was engaged reading, near the window of 
the hotel, and which was then partly open. 
I have stated that a free and unrestrained privilege of 
ascent into the atmosphere is a condition essential to the 
very being of these remarkable insects. 
The Blaps mortisaga, it is known, will live three years 
shut up, and without food. I have kept the Aranea dia- 
dema two months under similar circumstances. An ento- 
mologist informed me he had kept a spider three months 
without food ; and indeed this insect has been preserved 
alive upwards of a year confined, and wanting nutriment. 
The Aranea aeronautica^ however, I have invariably 
found, is impatient of confinement, and will die^ whether 
imprisoned in a chip-box or glass-tube (shewing that light 
does not affsct the question), sometimes in twenty hours^ 
or at most in two or three days, 
I introduced one of the aeronautic spiders under water; 
