THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. °° 167 
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 difficult 
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, three hundred feet above his fields, he found the webs 
in appearance still as much above him as before; still descend- 
ing into sight in a constant succession, and twinkling in the 
sun, so as to draw the attention of the most incurious. 
Neither before nor after 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 appear- 
ances, called gossamer, is, that, strange and superstitious as 
the notions about them were formerly, nobody in these days 
doubts but that they are the real production 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 aérial 
excursion, and why their webs should at once become so gross 
and material as to be considerably more weighty than air, and 
