Many years since, as I was walking over the hills in the neighbourhood of Blackburn, on a bright, still morning in September, thousands of small locks of what looked like cotton wool were slowly descending to the ground from various altitudes-- some as high as I could see--and tens of thousands of similar locks were lying on the ground on both sides of the path by which I was travelling; and on examination I found that all these locks were Gossamer, some with the spider still with them, but generally deserted. The spiders when they wanted to come down, finding there was no descending current of air, or perhaps, as Mr. Murray says, no electricity, determined to descend in _parachutes_; they therefore had drawn up their cables hand over hand (as they may often be seen to do when they wish to ascend their own lines) until they accumulated a mass heavy enough to fall by its own weight, and carry them along with it. I have seen Gossamer in this form at other times before and since, but in the likeness of a snow-shower I never saw it except on that occasion, and, if I recollect aright, the same enormous shower of Gossamer was observed to extend as far as Liverpool. What induced these millions of spiders to go up at the same time, of course I do not know, and can only suppose that they went up to feed; but, as I have said previously, I never saw one of this species preying upon anything. The idea that they go aloft to kill the _Furia Infernalis_ is too fanciful to deserve credit. Who knows whether the _Furia Infernalis_ is anything else than a murderous Mrs. Harris--at all events, who has seen one, and what was it like? I suppose they are true sportsmen, and disdaining to take their fish in nets, they, like thorough brothers of the angle, fish only _with fine gut_.