SELBORNE, _June_ 8_th_, 1775.
Dear Sir,--On September 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent on
field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the
enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with
a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew
hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it
were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When
the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked
that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the
incumbrances from their faces with their fore-feet, so that, finding my
sport interrupted, I returned home musing in my mind on the oddness of
the occurrence.
As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, and the day
turned out one of those most lovely ones which no season but the autumn
produces; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the South of France
itself.
About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a
shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing,
without any interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not
single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect
flakes or rags; some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which fell
with a degree of velocity that showed they were considerably heavier than
the atmosphere.
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
thistledown, 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 descending 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 appearances, 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 aerial excursion, and why
their webs should at once become so gross and material as to be
considerably more weighty than air, and to descend with precipitation, is
a matter beyond my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition,
I should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot, might be
entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk
evaporation, into the regions where clouds are formed: and if the spiders
have a power of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr.
Lister says they have [see his Letters to Mr. Ray], then, when they were
become heavier than the air, they must fall.
Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those spiders
shooting out their webs and mounting aloft: they will go off from your
finger if you will take them into your hand. Last summer one alighted on
my book as I was reading in the parlour; and, running to the top of the
page, and shooting out a web, took its departure from thence. But what I
most wondered at was, that it went off with considerable velocity in a
place where no air was stirring; and I am sure that I did not assist it
with my breath. So that these little crawlers seem to have, while
mounting, some locomotive power without the use of wings, and to move in
the air faster than the air itself.