Multitudinous Life On one of these most lovely mornings I
tried to make some sort of a census of the little webs that netted the mist. They numbered quite thirty to the square yard on a bit of lawn, and were hardly less numerous on the short grass of the common. Besides these the bushes were all generously hung with the large webs of such artists as the geometric spiders. The numbers are "a thing imagination boggles at," but it is only in such weather at such a season that we become at all aware of this• infinite host of small creatures, else known only to the birds that feed on them and the minute flies that they trap. Yet at every step we take our foot covers a company of living things. The spiders themselves only become apparent when on some halcyon morning the migrating instinct overcomes the young, and they scale the nearest high thing to launch themselves on the frail support of a single gossamer. Then these threads, which may completely drape field after field, yet further astound us with the multitude of the living things of which usually we are wholly unaware.
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