SPIDER. 
523 
u At the second of those places there was a gen- 
tleman (for whose veracity and intelligent turn of 
mind I 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 the meteor ; which he imagined might 
have been blown like thistle-down from the com- 
mon above. But, to his great astonishment, when 
he rode to the most elevated part of the down, three 
hundred feet above the level of his fields, he found 
the webs in appearance as much above him as be- 
fore, still ascending in a constant succession, and 
twinkling in the sun, so as to draw the attention of 
the most incurious. Neither before nor after this 
was any such fall observed ; but on this day the 
flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick that a 
diligent person sent out might have gathered baskets 
full. 
££ The remark that I shall make on these cobweb- 
like appearances, called gossamer, is, that strange 
and superstitious as the notions about them were 
formerly, no body in these days doubts but they 
are the real productions of small spiders, which 
swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and 
have a power of shooting out webs from their tails 
so as to render themselves buoyant, and lighter 
than air. But why these apterous insects should 
that day take such a wonderful aerial excursion, 
and why their webs should at once become so gross 
