212 
NATURAL HISTORY 
hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country 
seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets 
drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to 
hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they 
could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape 
the incumbrances from their faces with their fore feet, so 
that, finding my sport interrupted, I returned home musing 
in my mind on the oddness of the occurrence. 
As the morning advanced the sun became bright and 
warm, and the day turned out one of those most lovely ones 
which no season but the autumn produces ; cloudless, calm, 
serene, and worthy of the south of France itself. 
About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand 
our attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated 
regions, and continuing without any interruption till the 
close of the day. These webs were not single filmy threads, 
floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes or 
rags ; some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which 
fell with a degree of velocity, that showed they were con- 
siderably heavier than the atmosphere. 
On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he 
behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his 
sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their sides 
towards the sun. 
How far this wonderful shower extended would be diffi- 
cult to say ; but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, 
and Alresford, three places which lie in a sort of a triangle, 
the shortest of whose sides is about eight miles in extent. 
At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for 
whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest 
veneration) who observed it the moment he got abroad; 
but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the hill above 
his house, where he took his morning rides, he should be 
higher than this meteor, which he imagined might have been 
blown like thistle-down from the 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 twink- 
