Note Book VIII. Chap. 4. Note (e) — BOOK VIII.

[e] I have with Pleasure often seen Spiders dart out their Webs, and sail away by the Help thereof. For the Manner of which, see Mr. Lowth, Abridg. Vol. 2. p. 794. from Dr. Lister and Dr. Hulse, who both claim’d the Discovery thereof. And do both seem to have hit thereupon, without any Foreknowledge of what each other hath discover’d, as is said in the last cited Place, and as I more particularly find by Mr. Ray’s Philos. Letters, Printed Ann. 1718. p. 95, &c. By which also I find the two ingenious Doctors were very modest in their Claims, and very amicable in the Matter. In one of Dr. Lister’s to Mr. Ray, he thinks there is a fair Hint of the Darting of Spiders in Arist. Hist. An. L. 9. c. 39. And in Pliny, L. 11. c. 24. But for their Sailing, that the Ancients are silent of, and he thinks it was seen first by him. And in another Letter, Jan. 20, 1670, speaking of the Height Spiders are able to fly, he saith, The last October, &c. I took Notice, that the Air was very full of Webs, I forthwith mounted to the Top of the highest Steeple on the Minster, [in York,] and could thence discern them yet exceeding high above me. Some that fell, and were intangled upon the Pinacles, I took and found them to be Lupi: which Kind seldom or never enter Houses, and cannot be suppos’d to have taken their Flight from the Steeple.