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 loco-motive power
without the use of wings, and to move in the air, faster then the air
itself.
Letter XXIV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.
Dear Sir,
There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation,
independent of sexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious
birds in the winter is a remarkable instance.
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