Ground Rainbows

Abstract

MR. A. E. HEATH asks (NATURE, March 2, p. 5) how gossamer which “seems to be a kind of spider web, comes to be spread over so large an area.” Mr. Heath need have gone no further than Selborne to find the correct explanation, given by Gilbert White 140 years ago:—“Nobody in these days doubts that they (the cobweb-like appearances) are the real production of small spiders which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from their tails so as to render themselves buoyant.” Possibly the first part of the sentence was not true when Gilbert White wrote it, seeing that it is not always the case to-day. The thick clouds of gossamer noticed by Mr. N. T. Porter when out shooting in the early morning were noticed also by Gilbert White in September, 1741, when “intent on field diversions I rose before daybreak.” If a more recent account of gossamer is preferred it may be found in Fabre's “Life of a Snider.”