In warm autumn days, innumerable threads can be seen streaming from fences, bushes, and the tips of stalks of grass, or floating through the air. These are made by the Ballooning Spiders, which are able to travel long distances, hundreds of miles, through the air by means of these silken threads.
The ballooning spider climbs to some elevated point, and then, standing on the tips of its feet, lifts its body as high as it can, and spins out a thread of silk. This thread is carried up and away by a current of air. When the thread is long enough the force of the air current on it is sufficient to bear the spider up. It then lets go its hold with its feet and sails away. That these spiders travel long distances in this manner has been shown by the fact that they have been seen floating through the air at sea far from land.
Fig. 110. Nursery of Dolomedes.
LEAFLET XVI.
LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOAD.[20]
By S. H. GAGE.[21]
On account of its economic importance, and because the marvelous changes passed through in growing from an egg to a toad are so rapid that they may all be seen during a single spring term of school, the common or warty toad has been selected as the subject of a leaflet in nature-study. Toads are found everywhere in New York, and nearly everywhere in the world; it is easy, therefore, to get abundant material for study. This animal is such a good friend to the farmer, the gardener, the fruit-grower, the florist and the stock-raiser that every man and woman, every boy and girl, ought to know something about it.