138 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOUNE. 
LETTEE XXIV* 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Aug. \btli, 1775. 
Dear Sir, — There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute 
creation, independent of sexual attachment : the congregating of 
gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. 
Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute 
in a field by themselves : the strongest fences cannot restrain them. 
My neighbour's horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he 
will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without discovering 
the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger 
with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out at a stable- 
window, through which dung was thrown, after company ; and yet in 
other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by 
themselves ; but will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended 
by society. It would be needless to instance in sheep, which constantly 
flock together. 
But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same 
species ; for we know a doe, still alive, that was brought up from a 
little fawn with a dairy of cows ; with them it goes a-field, and with 
them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of 
this deer, being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase 
ensues ; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading 
her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, 
letter to Ray ; and at later periods it has been noticed and commented upon by 
various observers and entomologists. Blackwall, in a paper in the Transactions of 
the Liunasan Society, observed, that it was principally young and immature spiders 
that undertook the excursions, and thinks that they are borne upwards by an 
ascending current of rarified air acting on their slender lines. He does not agree 
with those who think that the flight is influenced by electricity. Mr. John Murray, 
in his " Researches in Natural History," records several experiments ; and on one 
occasion the thread was discharged to the ceiling of a room above eight feet high. 
On another occasion a spidei* darted its thread perfectly horizontal, and in length 
fully ten feet, and the angle of vision being particularly favourable, we observed 
an extraordinary aura, or atmosphere, round the thread, which we cannot doubt 
was "electric." Mr. Murray afterwards explains various phenomena, and arrives 
at the conclusion that electricity is much connected with them ; he found that when 
a conductor w^as brought near one of the floccular balls they are considerably 
deflected from the perpendicular, and that when a stick of incited sealing-wax 
was brought near the thread of suspension it seemed to be repelled. Mr. Murray 
quotes Selborne, last paragraph of Letter XXIII., in regard to the spider shooting 
out a thread in a calm atmosphere, and observes, " This phenomenon it has been 
our fortune frequently to observe," and he arrives at the conclusion that the 
electric or non-electric state of the atmosphere is intimately connected with the 
shooting of the thread, and the ascent of the spider. We have often seen hundreds 
of acres covered with this gossamer web sparkling with the morning dew, and the 
little creatures must have been exceedingly numerous, many being seen, and we 
regret never having attempted any computation, but no doubt this autumn wiU 
give opportunity to any one resident in the country, and getting out of doors early, 
Starck says that twenty or thirty are often found upon a single stubble, and that 
he collected in half-an-hour two thousand, and could easily have got twice as 
many had he wished it, 
* This letter is quoted from the original by B^rrington, in his "Miscellanies," 
Essay "On the prevailing Notions with regard to the Cuckoo," p. 251, and we 
presume as received from its author, 
