50 
SWALLOWS. 
antly tenanted with small spiders, and to a height 
almost incredible. Of the quantity we may form 
some idea, by the perfect carpetting of webs which 
are occasionally seen in an Autumnal morning, glis- 
tening 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 upwards on their 
airy webs ; and could perceive them in equal num- 
bers, 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 a great degree, on the 
state of the air ; if it is clear and dry, they rise ; if 
moist, or likely to be so, they keep nearer the 
ground, and thus, the Swallow, like the hand of the 
clock, moved by invisible wheels and springs, tells 
us when we may expect the weather to be moist or 
dry. 
We have noticed some odd places chosen by birds 
for their nests, but none, perhaps, more curious than 
those selected by Swallows, at the same time afford- 
ing another proof of the constant return of birds to 
the same places. At a nobleman's house in Scot- 
land, the kitchen was in a building separated from 
