BALLOONING SPIDERS.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9304, 3 January 1896, Page 6

BALLOONING SPIDERS.

I had climbed up the side of a canon in the Sierra Nevada, and sat looking up the green river that wound its way into the range, when my eye caught what appeared to be a dainty bit of lace floating along. On it came, so steadily that it seemed possessed with a certain intelligence, neither rising nor falling, as stray bits of chaff or down are wont to do, but moving in a direct line. No sooner had it passed than another came into view, then another, and then all at once the space between the two banks seemed filled with the floating objects, which might have been tho ghosts of fairies, so delicate were they. As one floated quite near mc, I put out my hand to catch it. Then I found that I had arrested a veritable balloon in its progress—an animal balloon, made by a delicate little aeronaut. I reached out and caught another. It, too, was a balloon, and it dawned upon mc that I was watching tho passage of myriads of aeronauts that were being drawn up the narrow cafion by the current of air that flowed along so silently. But who were the aeronauts ? None other than spiders, each balloon being occupied by one, and I realised that it was a most remarkable race, in which thousands of balloonist 3 were taking part. As one of the delicate structures drifted against my arms, the aeronaut stepped deftly from the car, and for a moment stood still, so that I had a rare chance to examine the dainty craft and navigator of the air. The balloon was a ball, or rather platform, of fluffy web or silk that resembled spun glass, and quite large enough to afford the spider ample room to rest upon. This platform corresponded to the car or basket of a balloon. As another ball came floating by I discovered attached to it a slender thread of silk that seemed to be the supporting medium. It extended directly upwards, and bent in the breeze, forming a delicate perpendicular column or sail. The little insect crawled up to tho highest point of my coat sleeve, then,

raising its spinnarets aloft, ejected a delicate thread. Every second it grew longer, and as it grew it rose directly upwards as if it was vastly lighter than the air. Up it went, higher and higher every moment, until I judged it to be three feet long, and then a very curious thing occurred. The spider was almost lifted from his legs. Another second passed, and then he appeared to be lifted again ; then he turned and ran a few steps directly into the air; then turned again, aud, head downwards, sailed away. So the thread of silk was iv reality, the balloon. The spider spins the thread out until the wind takes it and wafts it away. The fluffy platform is formed later during the flight, and when complete the aeronaut rests upon it as securely as the human aeronaut in his basket. That the spider, a slow traveller, can make itself a balloon and journey across deep cafions and raging torrents is certainly an evidence, not only of its ingenuity, but of its intelligence.