died before his father; and his son by this marriage,
afterwards George the Third, was the
next—the eleventh—Prince of Wales, who became
king at the age of eighteen. In his princedom,
also, there was no coming of age nor marriage.

The next and the last of the departed princes of
this rank was he who became George the Fourth.
As prince he came of age, and as prince, also,
he married—twice. He was first married to
Mrs. Fitzherbert, and afterwards to Caroline of
Brunswick. She was the only Princess of Wales—
unless we give that title, by right of a signed
but unfulfilled contract of marriage, to Henrietta
Maria, whose husband attained to the
throne.

Clearly there can be no good precedent of
English rejoicings at the coming of age of a
Prince of Wales. For, the only precedents are
to be found in the troubled youth of Charles the
First, in Charles the Second's days of exile, in
the coming of age of Frederick, the eldest son
of George the Second—which took place at about
the time of his arrival in this country as Prince
of Wales, just after the accession of a father
jealous of his son—and in the days of Prince
George, who became George the Fourth. This
prince furnishes, in fact, in the whole course
of our history the solitary precedent of anything
whatever having been done publicly to meet the
occasion. He came of age on the twelfth
of August, seventeen 'eighty-three: on which
day the king and queen received the compliments
of the nobility. Early in the year, the king's
message had been conveyed to both Houses of
Parliament for the prince's separate establishment,
and a hundred thousand pounds were voted
for that purpose. The actual day of the coming
of age was celebrated only by the festivity of
private bodies of friends; the public celebration
was deferred for eight months, until the
twenty-first of April in the ensuing year, and then
we do not find that anything was made of it. The
only public ceremony was the introduction of the
prince to parliament, on the eleventh of November
—three months after the coming of age.
Having been made a knight of the Garter, he
entered the House of Lords in his collar and
robes, introduced by a ceremonious procession,
his coronet carried before him on a crimson velvet
cushion, and he himself carrying his writ of summons,
supported by his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland,
and the Dukes of Richmond and Portland.
The writ and patent as Prince of Wales having
been delivered with due ceremony, his royal
highness was conducted to his chair on the right
hand of the throne, whence his majesty, who
was there seated, delivered a speech and retired.
The prince then took the oath of allegiance and
supremacy, and made and subscribed the oath of
abjuration. Ten days later, the Prince of Wales
was, by his majesty's command, introduced into
the privy council, where he took his place
at the upper end of the board, at his majesty's
right. At her majesty's right hand—in council
and out of it may the place of the prince who is
now coming of age, be true and strong until his
hair grows grey!

BALLOONING SPIDERS.

WE have already treated of spiders which tunnel
the earth, and spiders which skate upon the
water,* and will now discourse briefly respecting
spiders which make their way through the air.
The authors of our best summaries of comparative
anatomy, such as Owen or Siebold, say
nothing whatever in reference to the instruments
by which the aërial transport of the spider is
effected. Not merely do spiders run upon the
earth and grass, climb upon the trees, and skate
upon the lightest layer of the water globules;
they also dive into the water. They burrow into
the earth, and they move about in the air, and
how they do these things are puzzles baffling
still the curiosity of naturalists.

* In Volume the Sixth, pages 351 and 369.

Mr. Charles Darwin, as naturalist of the Beagle,
made many curious observations on spiders, and
saw such strange things done by them, that he
imagines they have some unknown power of
making themselves wings whenever they feel the
need of them. The very curious observations of
M. Virey seem to prove, Mr. Darwin thinks, that
small spiders in an atmosphere perfectly tranquil
and without the aid of any web, have the power
of darting through the air. By means of a rapid
vibration of their feet they walk the air. On several
occasions, when the Beagle was within the
mouth of the Plata, the rigging was coated with
the web of the gossamer spider. On the first of
November, 1832, the weather having been fine
and clear, the morning air was full of patches of
the flocculent web, as on an autumnal day in
England. The ship was sixty miles distant
from the land in the direction of a steady though
light breeze. Vast numbers of a spider about
one-tenth of an inch in length, and of a dusky
red colour, were attached to the webs. There
must have been some thousands on the ship.
The little spider when first coming in contact
with the rigging, was always seated on a single
thread, and not on the flocculent mass produced
apparently by the entanglement of single threads.
The spiders were all of one species, out of both
sexes, and were accompanied by their young
ones, which were distinguishable by their smaller
size and more dusky colour. This little aëronaut,
as soon as he arrived on board, ran about very
actively, letting himself fall and mounting up
again and making a small but very irregular
mesh in the corners between the ropes. It
could run with ease on the surface of the water.
When disturbed it lifted up its fore-legs in the
attitude of attention. On first boarding the ship,
these spiders seemed very thirsty, and, with their
lower jaws pushed out, drank water eagerly.
Mr. Darwin fancies this was because they had
passed through a dry and rarefied atmosphere;
but we have kept and fed spiders, and we know
that they are thirsty animals which enjoy a few
drops of water every day. While watching some