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Show r:fty Million spiders. The weather was beautiful, not ft breath of air was stirring, and the attention atten-tion of the citizens of thia place was attracted at-tracted by what at first looked like a small cloud, no larger than a man's hand, low down on the horizon, off to the northwest north-west side of the city. Aa hundreds were watching it, it grew largtif and larger, until it took on the semblance of a bank of fog 1,000 feet long and several feet thick. It floated along in a slow, qniet way, bnt at time would bend and squirm about in a most uncanny fashion. Alter it had remained quite stationary in the air for some little time it began to slowly settle to the earth. A great many people, who had been attracted by the strange sight, wont out of the town, and, as the strange visitation came nearer and nearer to terra iirma, it was seen to be a gigantic spider web, fairly alive with spiders. There must have boen 50,000,-000 50,000,-000 of thom, and after hovering over the ground for about five minutes it finally settlij and broke into thousands of pieces. The moment the web broke the insects disentangled themselves and struck across the country in all directions, some on the ground and some on little fragments frag-ments of the web, which floated along slowly a few feet above the grass, and each little piece fairly alive with spiders. The sight drew a great crowd, which quickly scattered when the visitors began to scramble toward them. Thousands of them came to the outskirts out-skirts of the city, where they caused the inhabitants great alarm. They were in all sizes, from that of the ordinary flea to half an inch in length, and the way they got over the ground, tumbling over each other as they went, waa a caution. By noon they had all disappeared, going go-ing in the direction of the Mercod river, and not a vestige of the great web remained. re-mained. Merced (Cal.) Letter. |