The country boy, or I might say even country baby, who does not know a
spider-web when he sees it would be considered a curiosity nowadays.
The morning gossamer spread in the grass or hung among the weeds and
glistening in the dew--who has not seen it, and thought of the agile,
long-legged proprietor somewhere lurking near by? And yet for ages,
and until a comparatively recent date, this cobweb, either trailing
lightly in the breeze or spread in the grass, was a mystery as to its
source, and was believed to consist of dew burned by the sun. But the
spider has hoodwinked even the wise heads in many other ways, and even
to-day is an unsolved mystery to many of us. Yes, we all know the
spider-web and the spider, but have we tried to solve the puzzle which
he spreads before us by every path, in our window-blind, our office,
our bedroom, or even, it may be, in mid-ocean. Here, for instance, a
puzzled nautical friend propounds the question: "How do those tiny
spiders get on my yacht when I am twenty miles at sea? They could not
have hatched simultaneously all over the ship, and I find them by the
dozens all over the sails and rigging, and even on my clothing." I
have heard of a little girl who ran in-doors to her mother in great
excitement to tell her that it was "snowin' 'pider-webs," a
picturesque and true statement as far as it goes, but which tells but
half the story, for each of the falling webs held a pretty secret.
What that secret was my yachtsman can readily guess, for the two
half-stories taken together complete the tale. Various accounts of
these gossamer showers have been handed down in history, and were
always a mystery. Even the ancient Pliny records a "rain of wool," a
phenomenon which, in a greater or less degree, is to be seen by every
walker in the country during the late summer and autumn months--the
annual picnic of the "ballooning spiders," whose peculiar aeronautic
methods are shown in my illustration.
Gilbert White, in his "History of Selborne," written over a hundred
years ago, gives a most graphic account of one of these cobweb
showers:
"On September the 21st, 1741," he says, "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 off the encumbrances from their faces with
their fore feet, so that finding my sport interrupted, I returned home
musing on the oddness of the occurrence.... About nine o'clock an
appearance very unusual began to demand my attention--a shower of
cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing without any
interruption until the close of day. These webs are 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, he might
behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight,
and twinkling like stars as they turned their sides to the sun."
This same shower was witnessed by others, and one observer noted a
similar one from the summit of a high mountain, the sky above him to
the limit of his vision glistening with the silvery flakes.
White adds, further: "Strange and superstitious as were the notions
about gossamers formerly, nobody in these days doubts 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 the
air."
I have italicized a phrase which is most suggestive, for such is the
actual resource of the spider balloonist, a feat which may be
witnessed by any one at the expense of a little trouble and patience.
Almost any bright autumn or late summer day is certain to reward our
search--indeed a search will hardly be necessary. The entire meadows
are often draped in the glistening meshes. They festoon the grass
tips, and wave their silken streamers from every mullein or other tall
weed. Our garments are soon faced with a new warp and woof of
glistening silk, and an occasional tickling betrays the floating
fluffy mass which has encombed our hands or face. The glistening "rain
of wool" of Pliny, or the mimic snow-squall of Gilbert White, I have
witnessed many times, only in less degree, over the October
rowen-fields. This tickling upon our hands is perhaps not all to be
accounted for by the mere contact of the silky web. If we examine
closely, we shall doubtless find a lively little spider extricating
itself from its unsatisfactory anchorage, and creeping to the nearest
available position for a new flight. Even as you are examining the web
upon your hand the spry midget has mounted to the top of your finger,
and is off on his new silken balloon in a twinkling, sailing upward
and out of sight even while his fellow-aeronauts are falling right and
left. For this flying-machine, though a toy, as it were, of the wind,
is still under control of the wise little sailor at the helm.
Almost any one of these flying tufts intercepted on our finger or upon
a small stick will induce its little aeronaut to make a new start, and
a careful examination with a pocket magnifier will disclose his
secret. No matter how slight the breeze, he seems instantly to head
against it, the abdomen is then raised, and in a moment a tiny stream
of flossy glistening silk is seen issuing from the spinnerets beneath.
Not the ordinary single web which we all know, but a broad band which
represents the many hundreds of strands usually combined in the single
thread, but now permitted to issue singly from the spinnerets. White
speaks of the spider "shooting out" the web, and such is the apparent
feat, but doubtless the breeze assists in the operation. It is
certainly taking good care of this floating banner from the loom of
this little spinner upon our finger-tip. Longer and longer it grows. A
yard or more of its length is soon swaying about in the breeze. So
buoyant has it now become that the little spider is visibly drawn
upward, and now clings barely by his tip-toes. In another second he is
off on his travels, where few could follow him even if they would. But
this we _must_ do if we would see the true "balloon," with its basket
and rigging and captain all in perfect sailing trim.
Up to the point of ascension--to utter a Hibernianism--I have often
thus followed my balloonist, but at this point I willingly yield the
pursuit to a more competent witness, one whose recognized fame as the
historian of the whole spider fraternity needs no emphasis from me.
They have kept very few of their secrets from the Rev. Dr. McCook. He
has followed them even in their flight, and has brought back all the
tricks of their navigation. To have been able to describe as an
eye-witness not only the ascension, but the subsequent alert and
skilful rigging, trimming of ship, sailing, reefing, and final
anchoring in port of this aeronaut with the silken jib, as Dr. McCook
has done, acquiring his facts through a wild pantomime in the meadows,
which for a time risked his reputation for sanity, is a triumph of
patient investigation which deserves conspicuous acknowledgment.
Here is what the doctor observed while his neighbors, as he ran
cross-eyed over the meadow, were bewailing the loss of his reason:
"The spider, as she was raised from the perch, had her head downward.
She immediately and swiftly reverses her position, clambers up her
floating threads, at the same time throwing out a few filaments, which
are cunningly twisted into a sort of basket into which the feet can
rest. Now the upper legs grasp the lower of the ray, and the
spinnerets, being released therefrom, are again set to work, and with
amazing rapidity spin out a second and similar ray, which floats up
behind her. Thus our aeronaut's balloon is complete, and she sits in
the middle of it, drifting whither the breeze may carry her. She is
not wholly at the mercy of the wind, however, for if she wishes to
alight, she can gather the threads into a little white ball under her
jaws; as they gradually shorten, the spider, having nothing to buoy
her, sinks by her own weight, and the striking upon some elevated
object, or falling upon the grass, makes her feel at home."
Having once alighted, the little pioneer immediately sets up
house-keeping for herself, and the locality of its web in a year hence
will doubtless be the scene of a similar balloon ascension, multiplied
perhaps a thousandfold, from the neighborhood of a tuft of eggs
somewhere concealed among the herbage--perhaps a brown, cocoonlike
affair like that of the _Argiope riparia_, hung with its guy threads
upon a dried fern.
The ballooning or flying spiders are not confined to any particular
species. It seems to be an instinct with them all, but especially with
the orb-weavers, or geometrical web-makers, and the wolf spiders;
those queer short-legged specimens which dodge about upon the walls
and fences, running forward or backward as the whim takes them, or
even sideways in a manner at which a crab might turn green with envy.
A shower of cobwebs of unusual extent fell in the vicinity of Brooklyn
about ten years ago, having been especially noted by a party of
surveyors in Prospect Park, among whom was a noted scientist and
naturalist. The ground was covered with the webs, averaging as many as
fifteen to the square foot. The shower was later noticed by the same
observers upon the summit of the Brooklyn Bridge tower, and doubtless
covered several miles in area.