Gossamer Days
Many of us do not remember to have seen quite such complete gossamer days as befell last week. As you walked, soft, almost invisible, wisps of silk stroked your face. You carried with you from top to toe silken streamers. Both grass and stubble-fields reflected the sun almost as if they had been lakes so close was the network of gossamer. The same day every other bush in the garden was hung with spider webs. No other migration in mass is at all comparable with the simultaneous flight of the young spiders. A strange tropism, as this form of instinct is now called, compels millions of young spiders of many different species to climb to the highest easily available object, to unroll a streamer of silk and leap for freedom. That there can be so many spiders in the world seems impossible. The date of such !migrations differs widely, but it is most often seen perhaps between the Harvest and the Hunter's moon.
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