Hon. S. Cummings, first Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in his county and also Postmaster of Batavia, and Mr. D. Lyman Beecher have described this phenomenon, and given the names of quite a number of gentlemen who witnessed it, and will testify to the accuracy of their accounts. Says Mr. Cummings: "Upon a critical examination through a magnifying glass, the following curious facts appeared. The mouth of the snake was fast tied up, by a great number of threads, wound around it so tight that he could not run out his tongue. His tail was tied in a knot, so as to leave a small loop, or ring, through which the cord was fastened and the end of the tail, above this loop, to the length of something over half an inch, was lashed fast to the cord, to keep it from slipping. As the snake hung, the length of the cord, from his tail to the focus to which it was fastened, was about six inches; and a little above the tail, there was observed a round ball, about the size of a pea. Upon inspection, this appeared to be a green fly, around which the cord had been wound as a windlass, with which the snake had been hauled up; and a great number of threads were fastened to the cord above, and to the rolling side of this ball to keep it from unwinding, and letting the snake down. The cord, therefore, must have been extended from the focus of this web to the shelf below where the snake was lying when first captured; and being made fast to the loop in his tail, the fly was carried and fastened about midway to the side of the cord. And then by rolling this fly over and over, it wound the cord around it, both from above and below, until the snake was raised to the proper height, and then was fastened, as before mentioned.
"In this situation the suffering snake hung, alive, and furnished a continued feast for several large Spiders, until Saturday forenoon, the 16th, when some persons, by playing with him, broke the web above the focus, so as to let part of his body rest upon the shelf below. In this situation he lingered, the Spiders taking no notice of him, until Thursday, eight days after he was discovered, when some large ants were found devouring his body."
At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Mr. Lesley read the following extract from a letter written by Mr. E. A. Spring, of Eagleswood, N. J.:
"I was over on the South Amboy shore with a friend, walking in a swampy wood, where a dyke was made, some three feet wide, when we discovered in the middle of this ditch a large black Spider making very queer motions for a Spider, and, on examination, it proved that he had caught a fish.
"He was biting the fish, just on the forward side of the dorsal fin, with a deadly gripe, and the poor fish was swimming round and round slowly, or twisting his body as if in pain. The head of his black enemy was sometimes almost pulled under water, but never entirely, for the fish did not seem to have had enough strength, but moved his fins as if exhausted, and often rested. At last he swam under a floating leaf at the shore, and appeared to be trying, by going under that, to scrape off the Spider, but without effect. They then got close to the bank, when suddenly the long black legs of the Spider came up out of the water, where they had possibly been embracing a fish (I have seen Spiders seize flies with all their legs at once), reached out behind, and fastened upon the irregularities of the side of the ditch. The Spider then commenced tugging to get his prize up the bank. My friend stayed to watch them, while I went to the nearest house for a wide-mouthed bottle. During the six or eight minutes that I was away, the Spider had drawn the fish entirely out of the water, when they had both fallen in again, the bank being nearly perpendicular. There had been a great struggle; and now, on my return, the fish was already hoisted head first more than half his length out on the land. The fish was very much exhausted, hardly making any movement, and the Spider had evidently gained the victory, and was slowly and steadily tugging him up. He had not once quitted his hold during the quarter to half an hour that we had watched them. He held, with his head toward the fish's tail, and pulled him up at an angle of forty-five degrees by stepping backward. The Spider was three-fourths of an inch long, and weighed fourteen grains; the fish was three and one-fourth inches long, and weighed sixty-six grains."
The following interesting account of the rarely-witnessed phenomenon of a shower of webs of the Gossamer-spider, Aranea obtextrix, is given us by Mr. White: "On the 21st of September, 1741, being intent on field diversions, I rose," says this gentleman, "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 hood-winked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances from their faces with their fore-feet. As the morning advanced, the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of the 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 of rags some near an inch broad, and five or six long. 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."
The Times of October 9th, 1826, records another shower of gossamer as follows: "On Sunday, Oct. 1st, 1826, a phenomenon of rare occurrence in the neighborhood of Liverpool was observed in that vicinage, and for many miles distant, especially at Wigan. The fields and roads were covered with a light filmy substance, which, by many persons, was mistaken for cotton; although they might have been convinced of their error, as staple cotton does not exceed a few inches in length, while the filaments seen in such incredible quantities extended as many yards. In walking in the fields the shoes were completely covered with it, and its floating fibres came in contact with the face in all directions. Every tree, lamp-post, or other projecting body had arrested a portion of it. It profusely descended at Wigan like a sleet, and in such quantities as to affect the appearance of the atmosphere. On examination it was found to contain small flies, some of which were so diminutive as to require a magnifying glass to render them perceptible. The substance so abundant in quantity, was the gossamer of the garden, or field Spider, often met with in fine weather in the country, and of which, according to Buffon, it would take 663,552 Spiders to produce a single pound."
"In the yeare that L. Paulus and C. Marcellus were Consuls," says Pliny, "it rained wool about the castle Carissa, neare to which a yeare after, T. Annius Milo was slaine." This rain of wool was doubtless a shower of gossamer.
It was an old and strange notion that the gossamer webs were composed of dew burned by the sun. Says Spenser:
More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see, Of scorched dew, do not in th' ayre more lightly flee.
Thomson also:
How still the breeze! save what the filmy threads Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain.
And Quarles:
And now autumnal dews were seen To cobweb every green.
Likewise Blackmore:
How part is spun in silken threads, and clings, Entangled in the grass, in gluey strings.
Henry More also mentions this old belief; but suspected, however, the true origin and use of the filmy threads:
As light and thin as cobwebs that do fly In the blue air caused by th' autumnal sun, That boils the dew, that on the earth doth lie; May seem this whitish rag then is the scum; Unless that wiser men mak't the field-spider's loom.
Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, gives sun-dew webs as a name given in the South of Scotland to the gossamer. The Swedes call a cobweb dwaergsnaet, from dwaerg, a species of malevolent fairy or demon; very ingenious, and supposed often to assume the appearance of a Spider, and to form these nets. The peasants of that country say, Jorden naefjar sig, "the earth covers itself with a net," when the whole surface of the ground is covered with gossamer, which, it is commonly believed, indicates the seedtime.
Voss, in a note on his Luise (iii. 17), says that the popular belief in Germany is, that the gossamers are woven by the Dwarfs. Keightley thinks the word gossamer is a corruption of gorse, or goss samyt, i.e. the samyt, or finely-woven silken web that lies on the gorse or furze.
A learned man and good natural philosopher, and one of the first Fellows of the Royal Academy, Robert Hooke, the author of Micrographia, gravely remarked in his scientific disquisition on the gossamer, that it "was not unlikely, but those great white clouds, that appear all the summer time, may be of the same substance!!"
The following well-authenticated incident is told by Turner as having occurred when he was a young practitioner: A certain young woman was accustomed, when she went into the vault after night, to go Spider-hunting, as she called it, setting fire to the webs of Spiders, and burning the insects with the flame of the candle. It happened at length, however, after this whimsey had been indulged a long time, one of the persecuted Spiders sold its life much dearer than those hundreds she had destroyed, and most effectually cured her of her idle cruel practice; for, in the words of Dr. James, "lighting upon the melted tallow of her candle, near the flame, and his legs becoming entangled therein, so that he could not extricate himself, the flame or heat coming on, he was made a sacrifice to his cruel persecutor, who, delighting her eyes with the spectacle, still waiting for the flame to take hold of him, he presently burst with a great crack, and threw his liquor, some into her eyes, but mostly upon her lips; by means of which, flinging away her candle, she cried out for help, as fancying herself killed already with the poison." In the night the woman's lips swelled excessively, and one of her eyes was much inflamed. Her gums and tongue were also affected, and a continual vomiting attended. For several days she suffered the greatest pain, but was finally cured by an old woman with a preparation of plantain leaves and cobwebs applied to the eyes, and taken inwardly two or three times a day.
Before this accident happened to her, this woman asserted that the smell of the Spiders burning oftentimes so affected her head, that objects about her seemed to turn round; she grew faint also with cold sweats, and sometimes a light vomiting followed, yet so great was her delight in tormenting these creatures, and driving them from their webs, that she could not forbear, till she met with the above narrated accident.