SPIDERS THAT LIVE IN THE AIR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3181, 29 March 1911, Page 9

SPIDERS THAT LIVE IN THE AIR.

STRANGE INSECTS.

The bicycle and the motor car have frequently been the means of revealing many curious dreams and comedies of nature by enabling persons to surrise and come to close quarters with many birds and,beasts in their habits. Probably (says Mr E. Kay Robinson, the editor of the “Country Side Monthly”) the aeroplane will be found a far more use-* •full aid to natural science than the bicycle or the motor car. The latter have only provided improved means of locomotion on the ground level, where naturalists have always worked. The flying machine passes through regions which have never been explored. During the seasons of migration bird's are often seen to pass across the fields oi astronomical telescopes, and when the upper air shall be filled with traffic the movement of the. birds with the changing winds will seem so simple—as it really, is— that even children will wonder why the present-day naturalist made a. “mystery” of it. Then there will be no need to shoot swift and noctule bats to discover what insect food they find at higher levels 'than the swallows and the small hats.' Very suggestive in this respect was the experience of the dirigible airship which ascended on a sunny autumn day, and in returning to earth after a short flight was found to he coated with gossamer of thousands of spid'ers.