SWALLOWS. 
249 
extreme pain felt, as soon as the eye closes upon its prisoner : 
this is occasioned, as the annexed figure will show, by the irri- 
; tation produced when 
the insect, as in the 
case of its larger repre- 
sentative on the gravel 
walk, on being caught, 
instantly darts up its tail, 
covered with similar 
sharp and fork-like ap- 
pendages. 
Our readers, on perus- 
ing the above narrative Staphylinus Brachypterus 
of the torpid state of (Magnified), 
the migratory Swallows, may' have been surprised that spiders 
should he found in the mouth of a bird collecting its food on 
the wing ; hut they will he still more so, in hearing that 
spiders form a very considerable part of the food of the 
Swift, which flies higher in search of insects than any other 
insect-feeding bird. The fact is, the air is abundantly 
tenanted with small spiders, and to a height almost incre- 
dible. Of the quantity, we may form some idea, by the 
perfect carpeting of webs which are occasionally seen in an 
autumnal morning, glistening with moisture. These are the 
webs of the gossamer- spider, which, rendered heavier by the 
dew collecting on their slender threads, fall to the ground, 
and cover whole acres. 
Of the height to which these spiders rise, we have the 
evidence of a person, who, from the summit of York Minster, 
nearly two hundred feet above the ground, found himself 
surrounded by immense flights of little spiders, floating up- 
wards on their airy webs, and could perceive them, in equal 
numbers, higher in the air, as far as the eye, aided by a good 
telescope, could reach. 
It is a common weather rule, that when Swallows fly low, 
there will be rain ; but when high, it will be fair. The 
reason may be readily guessed. They feed entirely, as we 
have said, upon insects ; and the flight of insects depends, in 
