As a bridge-builder he has had many successful imitators, but as a balloonist he is yet more than a match for his bigger copyist, homo sapiens, as I shall explain in a subsequent paper.
Ballooning Spiders
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.